Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Beccles Waterworks Bill [Lords],

Read the third time, and passed, without, Amendment.

Birmingham Corporation Bill,

As amended, considered; to be read the third time.

Huddersfield Corporation Gas Bill [Lords],

Middlesbrough Corporation Bill [Lords],

Stockton-on-Tees Corporation Bill [Lords],

Read a second time, and committed.

Stourport Gas Bill [Lords] (by Order),

As amended, considered; Amendments made; Bill to be read the third time.

Oral Answers to Questions — RAILWAY ADMINISTRATION.

ROLLING STOCK.

Lieut-Colonel W. GUINNESS: 1.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he can state what number of railway engines, carriages, and trucks, respectively, were removed from British railways and sent abroad during the War; and what steps have been taken to replace them?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster): The rolling stock transferred from British railways and sent abroad during the War comprises 528 locomotives, 30,021 wagons, thirty-one ambulance trains, and sixteen other trains. Such of this material as is surplus to present requirements abroad is being returned to England as rapidly as available transport facilities permit. Four hundred and thirty-nine locomotives, 3,000 wagons, and thirteen other trains have already been returned.

Mr. PEMBERTON BILLING: Can the right hon. Gentleman state whether it is proposed that all this rolling stock should be returned, or whether it is to be disposed of abroad?

Mr. FORSTER: Perhaps the hon. Member will give me notice of that.

Mr. MARSHALL STEVENS: May I ask why the right hon. Gentleman has not obtained a sufficient number of privately-owned wagons to make up the shortage due to the railway companies' wagons having been sent to France?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must give notice of that question.

COMPANIES' ACCOUNTS.

Major NEWMAN: 5.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that under the Railway Companies (Accounts and Returns) Act every company is annually obliged to set out in proscribed form and submit to an auditor and later to each of its shareholders the results of the year's working; will he say if since 1914, under authority of the Board of Trade, important portions of their statutory reports have been omitted by the railway companies; and, now that Peace has been signed, will the Board of Trade, for the protection and information of the shareholders and the taxpaying public, enforce the carrying out of the Accounts and Returns Act even though the railways are under Government control?

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Sir A. Geddes): The answer to the first and second part of this question is in the affirmative As regards the third part, it has been arranged that the form of accounts in use before the War is now to be adopted again so far as it is appropriate to the present unified system of railway working.

Major NEWMAN: Why is the form laid down by Statute not now required?

Sir A. GEDDES: My hon. Friend must have misunderstood my reply. The form of accounts used before the War is now to be adopted again, so far as it is appropriate to the present unified system of control. There are certain modifications necessary.

Mr. M. STEVENS: (by Private. Notice): May I ask the Leader of the House
when it is intended that the responsible Minister shall give further information to the House in regard to the White Paper on Railway Accounts.

Mr. BONAR LAW (Leader of the House): I only received the notice of this question as I came into the House. A Minister will be glad to make a personal statement on the first available opportunity during the Debate; probably on the Third Reading would be the more convenient time.

ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SHOW.

Colonel Sir J. REMNANT: 11.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will state why the usual concessions to exhibitors of cattle at the Royal Agricultural Society's show were this year withdrawn by the railway companies; and whether, in order to encourage the breeding and exhibition of high-grade stock, he will take steps to secure the renewal of the customary concessions?

Sir A. GEDDES: I do not know to what my hon. and gallant Friend refers. The Board of Trade through the Railway Executive did everything in its power to help the Royal Agricultural Society's show at Cardiff by the grant of all the possible facilities. If my hon. and gallant Friend refers to concessions in regard to fares, I can only say that the grant of such concessions has been suspended generally. I am afraid it is too early to predict what may be possible in future years.

Colonel Sir J. REMNANT: 31.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture if his Department was consulted by the Railway Executive before the usual concessions to exhibitors of cattle at the Royal Agricultural Society's Show were withdrawn this year, and what action was taken in order to prevent such withdrawal?

Colonel SANDERS: The Board were not consulted, nor did they take any action in the matter to which my hon. Friend refers.

Sir J. REMNANT: Was the withdrawal of these concessions brought to the attention of the Board of Agriculture?

Colonel SANDERS: I must ask for notice of that question.

FACILITIES AT NOTTINGHAM.

Mr. BETTERTON: 13.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether it is the intention of the railway companies serving the city of Nottingham to withdraw the facilities hitherto provided for collecting and delivering goods and parcels in the district of West Bridgford; and, if so, whether, having regard to the inconvenience and loss such action on their part would entail upon the residents in this district, he will give directions that the facilities be continued as heretofore?

Sir A. GEDDES: I am making inquiries and will let my hon. Friend know the result.

GATTIE GOODS TRANSPORT SCHEME.

Mr. RAPER: 16 and 22.
asked the President of the Board of Trade (1) if he will state the constitution and terms of reference of the Committee appointed to investigate the claims of the Gattie goods transport scheme; and whether any of the members of this Committee either are, or ever have been, in any way associated with the Board of Trade or other Government Department; (2) whether any of the members of the Committee appointed to investigate the claims of the Gattie goods transport scheme have been or still are either directors of railway companies or in any way associated with railway wagon construction firms?

Sir A. GEDDES: The terms of reference to the Committee are
to investigate Mr. A. W. Gattie's proposals for improving the method of handling goods and traffic, and to consider the practicability of the introduction of any of the suggested improvements into the existing transport system.
The Committee will consist of the hon. Member for the Maldon Division, who will be chairman, Sir John Aspinall, Mr. F. T. Hopkinson, General Sir Philip Nash, and a representative of labour. None of the members is or has been an official of the Board of Trade, but I cannot say whether any of them has or has not at some time been associated with a Government Department. One of the members—Sir John Aspinall—is a director of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company, but, so far as I am aware, none of them is connected with a wagon-building company.

Mr. RAPER: Will the inquiry be held with open doors?

Sir A. GEDDES: I cannot answer absolutely offhand, because the matter must, obviously, be to some extent in the hands of the chairman, but I will represent the suggestion to him to see if he has any objection.

Mr. G. TERRELL: Have any of the gentlemen put on the Committee any practical knowledge of the handling of railway traffic?

Sir A. GEDDES: Oh, yes!

Mr. TERRELL: Have all of them?

NATIONAL RIFLE MEETING, BISLEY.

Mr. GILBERT: 17.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether the Railway Executive Committee has allowed special railway fares to all men in uniform who are proceeding to Bisley for the National Ritle Meeting; if such fares are a double journey for a single fare; and whether he is prepared to consider the same special fares for other organisations in the country?

Sir A. GEDDES: I understand that the facts are as stated in the first part of the hon. Members question, and that the arrangements for competitors in uniform who are serving soldiers were made by the War Office. I presume that if in similar cases application were made to the War Office for the same concession, that Department would be willing to consider the matter.

Mr. BILLING: Does he not consider it wiser to extend these facilities to children to get their summer holidays rather than to men who are practising for the next war?

Sir A. GEDDES: There is a very different scale between the comparatively few competitors travelling in uniform to Bisley who are serving soldiers and all the children of the country.

AGRICULTURAL TRANSPORT.

Lieut.-Colonel WEIGALL: 34.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture how many experimental light railways for agricultural transport have been sanctioned; and in what localities and at what estimated cost?

Colonel SANDERS: No experimental light railways for construction by the Government or by other bodies with Government aid have yet been sanctioned. The
final decision in these matters will rest with the Ministry of Ways and Communications when the Ministry is established. The Board of Agriculture, in consultation with the agricultural executive committees and other local bodies, and with the Road Transport Board, are at present engaged in investigating the needs of agriculture and the prospects of traffic in about 190 districts in England and Wales.

Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAY: What about Scotland?

Colonel SANDERS: That question should be addressed to the Secretary for Scotland.

Lieut.-Colonel C. MALONE: Does it apply to Ireland?

Colonel SANDERS: No; the Board of Agriculture has nothing to do with Ireland.

An HON. MEMBER: What about the Isle of Man?

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING.

SUPPLY OF BRICKS.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: 2.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that there is a great demand for bricks in Suffolk, and that ample supplies for these requirements are being turned out in the Peterborough district, where, however, they have to be stacked owing to the failure of the Great Eastern Railway to provide rolling stock necessary for their delivery; and whether arrangements can be made for necessary transport facilities to be afforded without delay?

Sir A. GEDDES: The Great Eastern Railway Company inform me that it is the case that they are not able at present to provide all the wagons that the senders of bricks require, but the company are allotting as many as they can spare to this traffic. Like other railway companies, they are encountering heavy demands for wagons for foodstuffs and forage, and for other urgent requirements, and they have not yet been able to reduce to normal the number of wagons awaiting repair. To help to meet this situation the Government is taking immediate steps to bring into use on British railways the wagons which it acquired for service in France. By this means it is hoped to secure almost.
at once the use of 11,000 additional wagons and that more will become available later.

Mr. BILLING: In this distribution of bricks, will the right hon. Gentleman consult the Local Government Board as to respective requirements for building schemes and endeavour to facilitate matters?

Sir A. GEDDES: There is the fullest consultation between the Departments.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: In connection with the shortage of rolling stock, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is taking any immediate steps to develop the coastal trade again?

Sir A. GEDDES: Yes; very definite steps are being taken with reference to the coastal trade.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Immediately?

Sir A. GEDDES: Immediately.

TENANTS WITH CHILDREN.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 71.
asked the Prime Minister if he will consider introducing legislation to make it compulsory for landlords when letting houses to give priority to good tenants with children?

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Dr. Addison): The administration and other difficulties which would be involved in such legislation renders it impracticable to adopt the hon. Member's suggestion.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider taking some publicity action in his Department to bring these landlords to a sense of their public duty in this matter?

Dr. ADDISON: We will do what [...] can.

RENTS.

Mr. EDWARD KELLY: 79.
asked the Minister of Health the average ratio of the economic rent of houses under the present Bill to the actual rent, and ratio for the large cities, the urban districts, and the rural districts?

Dr. ADDISON: It is not possible to add anything to the detailed statements which have already been made to the
House on this subject; but the economic rent will depend upon the cost of building, and as a working rule it is suggested that the cost of building in 1927 (which is taken as the end of the transition period) will be not more than two-thirds of the present cost.

Mr. MacVEAGH: What is the detail statement which the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned?

Dr. ADDISON: We have made detail statements on this subject on several occasions both in the House on the Bill and on the Financial Resolution, and in the various Papers which have been issued to Members of the House.

PRIVATE ENTERPRISE (BUILDING MATERIALS).

Major STEEL: 80.
asked the Minister of Health whether he will consider the granting of similar facilities for obtaining building material at a reduced rate, as at present exists for State-aided building schemes, to private individuals on condition that the scheme promoted by the individual, either for new houses or for the improvement of existing houses, is submitted to the Ministry of Health and receives approval?

Dr. ADDISON: I will consider how far it may be administratively practicable to adopt the hon. Member's suggestion.

Major STEEL: When may we expect to have an answer?

Dr. ADDISON: I am discussing it with the parties concerned. I cannot say at the moment when I shall be able to answer it.

WAR RISK INSURANCE (VESSELS).

Mr. HOUSTON: 3.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the bureau of war risk insurance in the United States has returned to the Government over 17,000,000 dollars profit made on war risk insurance of vessels, cargoes, and crews for the period from 1st September, 1914, to 4th January, 1919; and whether he can state the amount of profit made by the British Government on war risk insurance of all kinds during the period of the War, giving the total amount of premiums received and losses paid, respectively?

Sir A. GEDDES: I had not seen the American figures. Preliminary figures showing the results of the various British war insurance schemes were published in April in Command Paper 98. I am sending the hon. Gentleman a copy of this paper.

Mr. HOUSTON: Is it not a fact that the British Government has made a profit of over £16,000,000 sterling out of the premiums paid by British shipowners, and is it not also a fact that losses have been made on cargoes and on neutral vessels?

Sir A. GEDDES: The preliminary figures only are available. They show a state of affairs very closely approximating to that stated.

Mr. A. SHAW: Can the right hon. Gentleman disabuse the public mind that this insurance has been granted entirely free of charge?

Sir A. GEDDES: I think the public mind will be disabused of that impression by the fact that the Government has made a profit, as pointed out by my hon. Friend opposite.

PEDIGREE STOCK (EXPORT).

Major M'KENZIE WOOD: 4.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that when recently a well-known own exporter of pedigree stock applied, in conformity with statutory Regulations, for permission to export a pedigree colt to South Africa he received a reply from the War Trade Department, reference number 612,274/19B, asking whether the pedigree colt is a shorthorn steer; whether he is aware that this reply has been published in the Press; and whether he will take steps to obtain expert knowledge for the purpose of dealing with questions of this kind?

Sir A. GEDDES: The answer to the first and second parts of the hon. Member's question is in the affirmative. As regards the last part the War Trade Department (now the Export Licence Department) obtain the advice of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries when export knowledge of agriculture is required. The particular application in question was in respect of a number of pedigree shorthorn cattle, with the addition of one pedigree colt. The applicant does not, as a rule, export horses, and I am informed that the Board of Agriculture thought
he might have inadvertently inserted "colt'' instead of "steer" or "young bull" on the application form. They, therefore, suggested to the War Trade Department that further inquiry should be made on this point, but, undoubtedly, the abbreviated form of the inquiry was not felicitous.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

CHINESE LACE EXPORTS.

Mr. BETTERTON: 6.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the fact that hand-made laces from China are being exported to Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, and that these goods are made under such conditions as to labour that it is quite impossible for the makers of machine-made laces in Nottingham to compete therewith; whether he is aware that the export of Chinese hand-made laces to Australia and New Zealand in creased from £1,000 in 1913 to £77,000 in 1917, and to the United Kingdom from £3,300 in 1913 to £18,000 in 1917; and whether he will state upon what grounds hand-made laces are allowed to be freely imported without licence, and why they should not be included in the import ration Regulations?

Sir A. GEDDES: The Imports Consultative Council did not think the importation of hand-made lace by reason either of the nature or the quantity of the goods imported was calculated to do harm to any similar industry established in this country, and from this view I do not at present see any reason to differ.

MACHINE-MADE LACE (IMPORTS).

Mr. BETTERTON: 7.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether the Regulations governing the importation of machine-made laces apply to all machine made goods from all sources; and, if not, whether he will state what countries are excepted there from and why such discrimination is exercised when in Nottingham and Long Eaton the majority of the machines are idle and a large number of workers are in receipt of the unemployment donation?

Sir A. GEDDES: The restriction on the importation of machine-made lace applies to lace emanating from all countries except France. Under an international
agreement France has the right of sending to this country most of the articles on the import restriction list.

Sir J. D. REES: Does it come under any provision of international agreement?

Sir A. GEDDES: Not at the moment, nor will it as a separate thing, but the general question of imports, of course, applies.

Sir R. COOPER: Is it a fact that the majority of machines are idle and people unemployed?

Sir A. GEDDES: I require notice of that question.

BRITISH BLACK LIST.

Mr. ARNOLD: 19.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has any official information that Americans are opening up business relations with firms on the British black list?

Sir A. GEDDES: My hon. Friend appears to be under some misapprehension. The black list has been entirely withdrawn.

AMERICAN AND GERMAN BUSINESSES.

Mr. ARNOLD: 20.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has any official information that American firms have acquired and are acquiring German businesses?

Sir A. GEDDES: I have no official information, but I am inclined to regard the action suggested in the question as by no means improbable not only as regards American but also British firms, and indeed firms of all Allied nationalities.

Oral Answers to Questions — CINEMA INDUSTRY.

Sir J. D. REES: 8.
asked (1) the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that an American company is now endeavouring to obtain control of the cinema trade in this country by building theatres for the exhibition of American films; and whether the Government proposes to take any steps to prevent the passing of these means of advertisement to and education of the people into other than British hands; (2), the Prime Minister whether, in view of the influence of cinema exhibitions with all classes, and particularly with the industrial class, of
the community, and of the fact that upwards of 20,000,000 inhabitants of the United Kingdom visit cinema theatres every week, the Government has under consideration the advisability of assisting the British cinema industry to retain control in the United Kingdom and of securing the continued exhibition of films designed to promote British views and British interests?

Sir A. GEDDES: I am aware that a prospectus has recently been issued by a new company with an authorised capital of £1,000,000 formed to finance the erection and operation of picture playhouses, and I understand that the chairman of the company is the hon. and gallant Member for Montgomery. The matter does not appear to be one in which His Majesty's Government is called upon to take any further action, but I would point out that imported cinema films are subject to a Customs duty.

An HON. MEMBER: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of prohibiting the building of cinema theatres in this country by other than British subjects or British-owned companies for a period of five years?

Sir J. D. REES: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that unless some action is taken the unparalleled opportunities of the cinema will be, or may be, devoted to other than British objects and British presentations of the subjects they represent?

Sir A. GEDDES: I can assure the hon. Member that the Government is not blind to such possibilities.

Captain WEDGWOOD BENN: Is it intended to make the duty on cinema films permanent?

Sir A. GEDDES: I must have notice of that question.

Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY: Is there a censorship on foreign films?

Sir A. GEDDES: There is a general censorship.

Mr. J. JONES: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to introduce legislation to prevent American heiresses from marrying British aristocrats

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF COMMERCE.

Sir ROBERT NEWMAN: 9.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether
the Government have arrived, or are likely to shortly arrive, at a decision respecting the question of the establishment of a Ministry of Commerce?

Sir A. GEDDES: The Board of Trade is now being developed to perform all the functions which would appertain to a Ministry of Commerce. Whether it be desirable to change the title of the Department or not is under consideration.

Oral Answers to Questions — SOUTH AFRICAN RAILWAYS.

Mr. HOUSTON: 10.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that recently the Union of South Africa Government placed in the United States orders for 44,000 tons of rails, 1,000 cars, 250 trucks, and, in the United States and Canada, seventy large locomotives; and whether, in view of the friendly relations which exist between the Government of South Africa and the British Government, he can state the reasons for placing this important order for material in America instead of in Great Britain, seeing the necessity of finding work for our people and of maintaining the export trade of Great Britain?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Lieut.-Colonel Amery): Some of the orders mentioned were placed by the South African authorities in the United States before the Armistice at a time when it was impossible to supply railway material from this country. As regards the seventy locomotives, which have been ordered since the Armistice, I am informed that the British offers in respect both of price and of date of delivery were so unfavourable that the South African authorities felt themselves obliged to go further a field. Forty of the locomotives, however, were, I am glad to say, ordered in Canada. In view of the form of my hon. Friend's question, which seems, no doubt unintentionally, to imply that it is undesirable that the South African Government should purchase material from Canada rather than from this country, I would remind him that the policy on which the Governments of the Empire have agreed is that of preference, in contracts, to the produce and manufactures of the Empire, and not merely to those of the United Kingdom. Contractors in this country cannot expect preference from other Governments in the Empire, except as against foreign countries.

Mr. HOUSTON: Is he aware that the price of material in the United States of America is very much lower than the price of material in this country, representing nearly £3 a ton on rails, and is that difference in price due to the high price of coal and industrial unrest in this country?

Lieut.-Colonel AMERY: I think that question must be addressed to another Department.

Sir R. COOPER: Has he made representations to the Board of Trade as to the very disastrous position in which our export trade is at the present time?

Major LLOYD-GREAME: Is it not a fact that the South African Government have done their best to place orders in this country, and entered into long negotiations with manufacturers in this, country in order, if possible, to place orders here?

Lieut.-Colonel AMERY: I understand that was the case, and that in every sense they did their best to give preference here before, owing to difference in cost and date of deliver, they felt themselves obliged to go elsewhere.

Oral Answers to Questions — SPIRITS.

Major NEWMAN: 14.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has any statement to make with regard to the continued scarcity of whisky; and if any relief is to be expected by the importation of supplies from America?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of FOOD (Mr. McCurdy): I have been asked to reply. The quantity of spirits which may be released from bond for home consumption has been fixed by the Cabinet at 75 per cent. of the quantity delivered in the year 1916, and as long as the clearances from bond are fixed, the importation of spirits from America does not affect the amount available to the consumer.

Major NEWMAN: Can he say what has happened to a cargo of American whisky knocking about these ports?

Mr. McCURDY: I have not heard of the cargo in question, but if he will furnish me with particulars I will have inquiries made.

Mr. G. TERRELL: Now that an increase has been allowed by the Government in
the supply of beer, may I ask whether a similar increase is being considered by the Cabinet with regard to whisky and other spirits?

Mr. McCURDY: I am afraid I do not sufficiently represent the Cabinet to be able to answer that question, which, I think, should be addressed to some other quarter.

Oral Answers to Questions — WOOL SUPPLIES.

Mr. FOREMAN: 15.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the fact that many fashionable garments which are now selling at six and seven guineas each contain less than I lb. of wool; whether the Government control price ranges broadly from 19d. to 24d. per lb.; and whether this high charge to the public is in any way due to the shortage of supply which is now being placed on the market?

The DEPUTY-MINISTER of MUNITIONS (Mr Kellaway): I have been asked to answer this question. I have no information on the point mentioned in the first part of the question. The Government schedule of prices at which the trade receive a part of their supplies of wool ranges between 26½d. and 70½.per lb. for cleaned scoured wool, according to quality. The high price of woollen garments cannot be due to short supplies or to excessive charges for Government wool, since the Government schedule of issue prices is considerably below the market price at present in any part of the world, and British farmers are obtaining very much higher prices for the new clip. The stocks of wool in this country are the greatest ever known, and the Department is using every effort to pass the wool on to the consumers.

Oral Answers to Questions — PEACE CELEBRATIONS.

RAILWAY FACILITIES.

Mr. G. THORNE: 21.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether any special train facilities will be provided for the convenience of passengers on Peace day, 19th July?

Sir A. GEDDES: The question of the train services to be provided on the 19th July is now under the consideration of the Railway Executive Committee.

NAVAL, MILITARY AND AIR FORCE BANDS.

Commander Viscount CURZON: 51.
asked the Prime Minister whether it can be arranged for all the available naval, military, and Air Force bands to play suitable music in the large public squares and available spaces in London, and in all large towns throughout the country, for the maximum amount of time between the hours of eight and eleven p.m. on the 19th July?

Mr. BONAR LAW: The suggestion of my Noble Friend will be carefully considered.

OLD AGE PENSIONERS.

Mr. BLAIR: 58.
asked the Prime Minister if, in order to enable old people to enjoy the Peace celebrations, he will favourably consider the suggestion of increasing the old age pensions by 5s. for the week ending 18th July?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I regret that I cannot recommend this proposal to the House.

NATIONAL HOLIDAY.

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: 64.
asked the Prime Minister if he is now in a position to state the decision of the Government with regard to proclaiming Saturday, 19th July, a national holiday?

Mr. BONAR LAW: It is proposed to declare Saturday. 19th July, a Bank Holiday, and the Royal Proclamation will be issued in due course.

Mr. BILLING: Will the right hon. Gentleman see that at least there is enough alcohol on that day for everyone to drink the King's health?

Sir A. SHIRLEY BENN: Will the right hon. Gentleman also consider the desirability of closing the post offices and telegraph offices on that day?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I will ask my right hon. Friend to consider that, but I am afraid that the objections are greater than the advantages.

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: 72.
asked the Prime Minister whether, in the event of Saturday, 19th July, being proclaimed a national holiday, he will make such arrangements as will allow of the provision shops being allowed to remain open an hour longer on the preceding Friday?

Mr. DUDLEY WARD (Vice-Chamberlain of the Household): I have been asked to reply to this question. The suggestion in the question is being considered, and an announcement on the subject will be made very shortly.

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman say whether this extension will be allowed as it is a matter of great importance to a large number of people in this country?

Mr. WARD: I cannot add anything to my answer.

PROCESSION (SOUTH LONDON).

Mr. DAWES: 73.
asked the Prime Minister whether a procession through London is to form part of the Peace celebrations on 19th July; and, if so, can arrangements be made for it to pass through some part of South London?

Mr. BONAR LAW: The answer to both parts of the question is in the affirmative.

Oral Answers to Questions — ALLIES AND ALBANIA.

Lieut.-Colonel A. HERBERT: 24.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Allies intend to adhere to their pledge and create a free and independent Albanian State or do they propose to partition the country as Poland was once partitioned?

The UNDER-SECRETARY Of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Cecil Harmsworth): The question of the future status of Albania has not yet been discussed by the Supreme Council in Paris.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNITED STATES AND ALIEN IMMIGRATION.

Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAY: 25.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affaire whether any laws have recently been passed in the United States of America regarding the immigration of aliens; and, if so, what is their nature?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: No new legislation has actually been enacted, but bills have been laid before the United States House of Representatives and Senate, the effect of which would be to prohibit alien immigration for periods of four and five years respectively.

Oral Answers to Questions — EGYPT.

PRESS CENSORSHIP.

Captain ORMSBY-GORE: 26.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether General Allenby has removed the Press Censorship in Egypt?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: The censorship on the Press in Egypt was removed the same day that Peace with Germany was signed.

RECENT OUTBREAK (INVESTIGATION).

Captain W. BENN: 27.
asked the Under secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will lay Papers containing the Reports of the investigation undertaken by the High Commissioner in Egypt as to the causes of the recent outbreak?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: The investigation is not yet completed. The results of it will be submitted in the first instance to the Special Mission, which is proceeding to Egypt in the autumn and which, though its main object is to make recommendations for the constitutional future of Egypt, will also deal in its Report with the causes of the recent outbreak.

Captain BENN: Will the hon. Member say what means this House possesses of securing information about the state of affairs in Egypt?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: Perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend will put a question indicating how the House may be better informed.

Captain BENN: What other means does this House possess except asking him to lay Papers dealing with the subject?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: My hon. and gallant Friend will not fail to observe that these Papers have not been prepared for publication because they are to be used by the Commission.

Captain ORMSBY-GORE: Can he give the House any further information with regard to the composition of the Commission?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: No, I am sorry to say I cannot.

Major Earl WINTERTON: Can he give us any date by which we shall know how the Commission will be composed; would the middle of 1920 be too far off?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: The composition of the Commission will be announced as quickly as possible, and I hope very shortly.

Captain BENN: Are there any means of finding out the result of the inquiries made by General Allenby?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: No, I do not think so. These inquiries are being prosecuted because the Commission is going to Egypt, and are to be ready for the Commission when it gets there.

Captain BENN: What means has this House of discovering what were the causes of unrest earlier in the year?

An HON. MEMBER: Move the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — LAND SETTLEMENT BILL (ALLOTMENTS).

Sir K. WOOD: 28.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture whether the Land Settlement Bill will enable authorities in urban areas to acquire land for allotments pending such land being required for building; whether such allotments will be let at an agricultural rent; and, such being the case, whether he will take steps to secure that land acquired under the Defence of the Realm Act will be reacquired under the provisions of the Land Settlement Bill when passed?

Colonel SANDERS: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, and the rent paid for the land will not take into consideration the value for building or industrial purposes, for which the owner can resume possession. As to the last part of the question, the Board will take steps, when the Land Settlement (Facilities) Bill becomes law to bring its provisions especially to the notice of the various allotment authorities, and urge them to make the fullest use of the powers entrusted to them.

Oral Answers to Questions — RYE CORN (PRICE).

Captain Sir B. STANIER: 29.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture if he can now say what price has been guaranteed for rye corn of the 1919 crop?

Colonel SANDERS: It has been decided to apply the method of the Corn
Production Act to the price of rye, as follows: The sum payable in respect of each acre will be a sum equal to three and a half times the difference between the average price and the minimum price of 71s. 11d. per quarter of 480 lbs. The average price for rye produced in 1919 shall be taken to be the average price for the seven months September-March, as computed and declared by the following persons, or a majority of them, namely, the presidents of the London and Liverpool Corn Trade Association, a sheriff appointed by the Secretary for Scotland, a representative of the corn trade in Ireland appointed by the Chief Secretary, and a person appointed by the Treasury. This guarantee will only apply to the acreage of rye that is harvested for grain.

Captain BENN: What will be the cost of this subsidy to the public Exchequer?

Colonel SANDERS: I must ask for notice of that.

Sir B. STANIER: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman be able to gather what the figure is that these gentlemen are going to find?

Colonel SANDERS: I must ask for notice of that question.

Oral Answers to Questions — BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

Lieut.-Colonel WEIGALL: 32.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture when the Bill necessary to fulfil the promise of the Government to reorganise the Board will be introduced?

Colonel SANDERS: I hope the Bill to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers will be introduced within the next few weeks.

Lieut.-Colonel WEIGALL: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman urge the Leader of the House to give earnest consideration to the introduction of this before the Board of Agriculture Estimates?

Colonel SANDERS: I will see that the suggestion is conveyed to my right hon. Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT MOTOR CARS.

Commander Viscount CURZON: 35.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions upon what duties
was a Government motor car, LU 6555, being employed at I.12 p.m. in Pall Mall on Wednesday, 2nd July; is he aware that two large dogs were in occupation of the car; and can he say for what purposes were they there?

The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Churchill): I have been asked to answer this question. Motor car LU 6555 was detailed for duty with the Headquarters, Women's Legion (Motor Drivers), on the occasion referred to. The headquarters are at I5, Pall Mall East. The Commandant ordinarily used a motor bicycle and side-car, and invariably takes her dogs with her for the purpose of guarding the machine, which would otherwise be left unattended. On this occasion the motor cycle was under repair, so a car was used. There is no Regulation forbidding the presence of dogs in military motor cars.

Sir F. BANBURY: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether the dogs were muzzled or unmuzzled?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I see no reason why this woman officer, who has important duties to discharge, and is accustomed to use a motor cycle and side-car, and that is under repair, should not in an emergency be granted the use of a motor car. As to whether the dogs were in the car or not, I am surprised that the House of Commons should trouble about that.

Mr. MacVEAGH: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the question of the right hon. Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) whether these dogs were muzzled? If not, were they not breaking the law; and if they were muzzled how could they protect the cart

HON. MEMBERS: Answer!

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: 45.
asked the Prime Minister whether he will publish any Regulations which may have been made regulating the use of Government motor cars, and especially for restricting them to official business?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I hope to announce shortly the steps which His Majesty's Government have decided to take with regard to the use of Government motor cars.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: Does the right hon. Gentleman endorse the opinion
of the Air Ministry that the conveyance of officials from their residence to the Ministry is official business?

Mr. BONAR LAW: It is a very difficult question, because—it is no exaggeration to say—there is more work now in Government Departments than before the War, and it is much more difficult to get outside communication. Already, however, a great deal has been done on the subject, and I hope to be able soon to announce a definite scheme.

Mr. KENNEDY JONES: Can the right hon. Gentleman say why there is much more work in Government Departments now than before?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not know, but I can guarantee it is so.

Mr. BILLING: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the cost of running Government motor cars is about 32s. per mile, whilst a taxi-cab costs 8d.? Why should not taxi-cabs be used?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I should very much doubt the accuracy of that statement. The cost of Government motor cars, though very high, is not, I believe, higher than that paid by private individuals who use their own cars.

Oral Answers to Questions — OIL DISCOVERY, DERBYSHIRE.

Mr. HOLMES: 36.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions whether he is in a position to give the names of those who will constitute the Committee which is to report upon the policy, and the means of carrying it out, concerning the discovery of oil in Derbyshire; what the terms of reference will be; and whether the Committee will be asked to report before the Summer Recess?

Mr. KELLAWAY: I should be glad if my hon. Friend would repeat his question on Thursday, when I hope to be in a position to make a statement on the subject.

Oral Answers to Questions — CENTRAL CONTROL BOARD (LIQUOR TRAFFIC).

Major NEWMAN: 37.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions whether a Memorandum on the work of the Central Control Board (Liquor Traffic) will be issued; and will
it be accompanied with a statement showing the assets and liabilities of the Board and the public money it has expended to the date of its decease?

Mr. KELLAWAY: Four general Reports on the Board's work, and a Financial Statement of the position regarding the Board's acquisition of licensed premises as at 31st March, I918, have already been presented to Parliament, and documents in continuation of these publications are in preparation.

Major NEWMAN: 56.
asked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that, owing to the activities of the Central Control Board (Liquor Traffic), the taxpayer is now the possessor of a number of licensed premises, hotels, and hostels in Carlisle, Enfield, and other parts of Great Britain; have the owners of all these properties been paid for them; and what does the Government intend to do with them?

Mr. KELLAWAY: The answer to the first paragraph of the question is Yes, Sir, and to the second that most of the owners have already received payment for the properties acquired. The third paragraph will be a matter for Parliament when the promised Bill is under discussion.

Oral Answers to Questions — ORDNANCE FACTORY EMPLOYES (COMMITTEE ON PENSIONS).

Sir K. WOOD: 39.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Munitions whether he can now announce the names of the Chairman and Committee appointed to report on a pension scheme for Ordnance Factory employés, and when the Committee will begin to sit?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of MUNITIONS (Mr. James Hope): Sir Edward Brabrook, C.B., has been selected as Chairman, and the other members of the Committee will be:

Mr. J. G. Ashley (War Office).
Mr. W. S. Sarel, C.B.E. (Admiralty).
Mr. W. Hayden (Ministry of Munitions).
Mr. T. Roberts and Mr. C. J. Davies (representing the workmen of the Royal Ordnance factories).

I am in communication with the Chairman as to the first meeting.

Oral Answers to Questions — REGENT'S PARK.

Major BARNETT: 40.
asked the First Commissioner of Works when it is proposed to remove the unsightly erections which cover so large a part of the surface of Regent's Park, so as to restore as soon, as possible the amenities of the neighbourhood and provide playing fields for the juvenile population?

Mr. D. WARD: The question of removing the temporary buildings in Regent's Park has been receiving my right hon. Friend's serious consideration for some considerable time past. Owing, however, to the great difficulty experienced in finding alternative accommodation, he regrets that he is not in a position to state definitely by what date the buildings will be cleared away, but he is in communication with the Departments concerned, and will spare no effort to secure their removal at the earliest possible moment.

Major BARNETT: Will the hon. Gentleman say if the personnel of this Department contains two gentlemen named Dilly and Dally?

Mr. BILLING: Will the hon. Gentleman represent to the Minister in question the feelings of all true British people in this matter?

Oral Answers to Questions — HYDE PARK (MOTOR OMNIBUSES)

Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: 41.
asked the First Commissioner of Works whether he can see his way to opening the road across the park from Prince's Gate to Victoria Gate to motor omnibuses, in view of the fact that this would tend to relieve the congestion in Piccadilly and Park Lane, and would not cause any inconvenience to the public '?

Mr. D. WARD: The road in question is already used by light vehicles, but its use by motor omnibuses and other heavy vehicles would involve the reconstruction of the bridge over the Serpentine, and the carrying out of other alterations to the Park, the cost of which would be very heavy. My right hon. Friend regrets, therefore, that he cannot see his way at the present time to accede to the suggestion.

Oral Answers to Questions — REGISTRARS OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS (GRATUITIES).

Dr. M'DONALD: 43.
asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that the Birken-
head Board of Guardians have refused to act upon the suggestion made by the Local Government Board on the subject of granting gratuities to registrars of births and deaths; and will he take such steps as may be necessary to ensure that registrars are dealt with in the matter of war bonus or gratuity on lines similar to those in operation in the case of other public servants?

Dr. ADDISON: This case has not previously been brought to my notice. On the general question, I can only refer to the reply I gave on 10th April last to my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln, of which I will send him a copy.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDUSTRIAL TENANCIES, MANCHESTEE.

Major HURST: 44.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of the recent tendency in Manchester to terminate by notice the existing tenancies of industrial tenants without due cause; whether he is aware of the notice to quit lately served on an important labour-employing quilt manufactory in Clifford Street, Manchester, in order to reconstruct the premises as a saloon for billiards and dancing; and whether, having regard to the present difficulty in finding other sites available as works, he can see his way, by legislation or otherwise, to protect tenancies of this type in the interests both or capital and labour and of the public?

Dr. ADDISON: I have received a communication respecting the particular case mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member, but I have no information as to the extent of the practice referred to. I understand that the cases are not within the provisions as to tenancy and rent of dwelling-houses contained in the Increase of Rent, etc., Acts. The matter is not one within the province of my Department, but I will have it brought to the notice of the Government

Oral Answers to Questions — PEACE TREATY.

ITALO-AUSTRIAN FRONTIER.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 49.
asked the Prime Minister whether, before the Peace Treaty with Austria is signed, the Peace Conference will consider any alteration in the proposed Italo-Austrian frontier, in view of the fact that the terms
as at present constituted involve the handing over of 200,000 Teutonic Tyrolese to an alien rule; and whether the principle of self-determination can be applied in this case?

Mr. BONAR LAW: As I have already stated, it is not possible to discuss details of this kind by means of question and answer.

Oral Answers to Questions — HIGH SHERIFF'S OFFICE.

Sir J. D. REES: 50.
asked the Prime Minister whether he will give the House an opportunity of rescinding its 'Resolution of I689, which renders a Member of Parliament ineligible for the office of High Sheriff?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I am not disposed to think that there is any general desire on the part of the House for the action proposed.

Sir J. D. REES: Is my right hon. Friend aware that recently there has been such difficulty in providing suitable residences for this office that men resident outside the counties to which they are appointed high sheriffs have necessarily been appointed, and is there any objection to rescinding this Resolution?

Mr. BONAR LAW: There is the objection of finding the time. But when I was Chancellor of the Exchequer I was present when these appointments were made, and I do not think Members of the House desire what is asked.

Oral Answers to Questions — LIQUOR TRADE (REPORTS OF COMMITTEES).

Mr. SITCH: 52.
asked the Prime Minister when he proposes to give effect to the Reports of the Committees appointed by the Government during the War in favour of the nationalisation of the liquor trade?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I am not in a position to make any statement on this subject.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOREIGN POLICY (ASIA MINOR).

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 53.
asked the Prime Minister when, in view of the unrest in the Moslem world and the British interests involved, he will make a statement as to our policy in Asia Minor?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I regret that I am not in a position to make any statement.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL EXPENDITURE.

SELECT COMMITTEE'S REPORT.

Sir F. BANBURY: 54.
asked the Prime Minister whether he intends to give effect to the recommendations in the first.Report this Session of the Select Committee on National Expenditure?

Mr. BONAR LAW: The recommendations of the Committee are receiving the consideration of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Mr. BILLING: As it is a question of the success of the War Loan would the right hon. Gentleman postpone making any disclosures till it is over?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I am not so sure of that. Examination would, I think, show that those figures are exaggerated.

Oral Answers to Questions — CENSORSHIP.

Captain ORMSBY-GORE: 55.
asked the Prime Minister whether the Government will now abolish the cable censorship; and whether he is aware that the continuance of the censorship is seriously prejudicing the revival of British overseas trade

Mr. DENISON-PENDER: 82.
asked the Postmaster-General whether, now that Peace is signed, he can make any statement with regard to the withdrawal of censorship from cablegrams?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I have been asked to answer these questions. I would refer my hon. and gallant Friends to the reply which I gave to a similar question put to me on the 4th July by the hon. Member for Wimbledon, to which I have nothing to add. The reply in question was that it is hoped that circumstances may soon render relaxation in this direction possible.

Sir R. COOPER: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he realises how deeply British industry is suffering from the present delays? Is it not the fact that the War Office are still sending numbers of messages running into 800 and 900 words, particularly to Egypt, many of which might well be sent by post or other ways?

Mr. STEWART: Would the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of allowing British firms of good standing to use their own private codes?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I have investigated that matter at considerable length, and although I was strongly drawn to the hope that it would be possible to combine a certain degree of censorship with the admission of private services I regret it is not possible. But a relaxation of these restrictions is necessarily imminent; if it is prolonged for a few weeks more it is only because of the general state of the world,, which makes it difficult for us altogether to give up our means of supervising the? control of certain activities.

Mr. HOUSTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that recently a cable occupied ten days in coming from New York to this country?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I was not aware of that, but I know there is enormous delay in all messages. I am told, however, that when the restrictions are removed and the cable resumes its full elasticity the delay will be even greater because of the pressure on the wires.

Mr. G. TERRELL: Can the right hon. Gentleman see his way to speed up the censorship so that there may be no unnecessary delay on the subject?

Mr. CHURCHILL: The matter is a very difficult one indeed. What one wishes to do now is to relax the censorship over the great volume of correspondence while at the same time preserving the censorship for certain suspected correspondence. That is the difficulty which, when it is translated into action, renders very difficult the production of a satisfactory scheme.

Mr. DENISON-PENDER: Would the right hon. Gentleman use his influence with the Government to allow this House to have a discussion on the whole question of cable delays, which is of the utmost importance to this country in its trade competition with foreign countries?

Mr. CHURCHILL: Everyone recognises that this censorship has got to be abolished at an early date. The question is what arrangements can be, made which will not have the effect of impeding the movements of commercial business.

Brigadier-General COCKERILL: Is it not the fact that the operations of the censorship cause no delay whatever?

Mr. DENISON-PENDER: Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that, apart from the question of the censorship, it is time that the whole question of cable delays was discussed in this House owing to the extreme importance to this country of her trade?

M r. CHURCHILL: Well, Sir, my hon. Friend has as good access to the Leader of the House as I have.

Mr. TERRELL: Will the Leader of the House give the opportunity?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 57.
asked the Prime Minister how long it is proposed to continue the censorship of letters; and will he give the number of persons at present engaged in this work?

Mr. CH U RCHILL: I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the reply given on Thursday last to a similar question put by the hon. and gallant Member for the Kincardine and Western Division of Aberdeen and Kincardine, to the effect that the censorship of civilian mails in the United Kingdom has been discontinued except as regards mails to and from areas in which military operations are in progress. The number of persons employed in actual censorship at the present time is sixty including the supervising officers. In addition there are 278 examiners and higher staff employed in the work of clearing up.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMERGENCY LEGISLATION.

Captain R. TERRELL: 59.
asked the Prime Minister how existing war legislation is affected by the declaration of Peace, indicating what measures will cease to be law either now or in six months' time?

Mr. BONAR LAW: The Acts, the duration of which is affected by the duration of the War, are enumerated in the Register of Temporary Laws, House of Commons Paper No. 82, of 8th May, I919.

Mr. BILLING: Will it not be necessary to take new powers for these to be continued after Peace is signed?

Mr. BONAR LAW: As I said the other day, some of the powers may have to be maintained, but that can only be done by Act of Parliament.

Captain ORMSBY-GORE: When does the right hon. Gentleman expect to intro-
duce a Bill dealing with the Welsh Church Act, which, I understand, comes into force immediately Peace is ratified?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I cannot make a statement on that at present, but, of course, the ratification of Peace does not mean Peace with Germany alone.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE (COMMISSION).

STATEMENT BY MR. BONAR LAW.

Captain TERRELL: 60.
asked the Prime Minister whether he can now make any statement as to the composition and reference of the Royal Commission on agricultural policy?

Lieut.-Colonel WEIGALL: 33.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture when the terms of reference and personnel of the Royal Commission on agriculture, promised nine weeks ago, will be announced?

Mr. BONAR LAW: The terms of reference to the Royal Commission on Agriculture are as follow:
To inquire into the economic prospects of the agricultural industry in Great Britain, with special reference to the adjustment of a balance between the prices of agricultural commodities, the costs of production, the remuneration of labour, and hours of employment.
The following gentlemen have kindly consented to serve on the Commission:

Sir William Peat, F.C.A. (chairman), president, Institute of Chartered Accountants, 1906–7 and 1907–8.
Charles Douglas, C.B., D. Sc, agriculturist.
E. W. Langford, agriculturist.
Henry Overman, O.B.E., agriculturist.
G. Rea, C.B.E., agriculturist.
R. R. Robbins, agriculturist.
W. Anker Simmons, C.B.E., land agent.
Arthur W. Ashby, agricultural statistician.
George Dallas, divisional organiser of the Workers' Union.
Joseph F. Duncan, secretary of the Scottish Farm Servants' Union.
Thomas Prosser Jones, Welsh representative.
George Nicholls, late M.P. for North Northants and ex-Mayor of Peterborough.
1391
W. R. Smith, M.P, Member for Welling-borough Division, Northants. Chairman of the National Agricultural Labourers' Union.
R. B. Walker, secretary of the National Agricultural Labourers' Union.
Sir William J. Ashley, M.A., Hon. Ph.D., vice-principal of Birmingham University.
H. S. Cautley, K.C., M.P., Member for East Grinstead.
Frederick E. Green, author, and journalist on agricultural subjects.
John M'D. Henderson, barrister-at-law, and chartered accountant.
R. V. Lennard, M.A., lecturer in modern history, Wadham College, Oxford.
E. H. Parser, director of Barclay's Bank, Cambridge.

Three names have to be added. When the Commission is complete it will, in addition to the chairman, consist of twenty-two members, of whom eight are agriculturists and eight representatives of labour.

Mr. G. LAMBERT: Is there any time limit for the presentation of the Report of this Commission?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I do not think it is possible to set a time limit, but the Commission understand the urgency of the problem.

Captain TERRELL: Are the consumers to be represented?

Mr. BONAR LAW: If my hon. and gallant Friend will look at the names he will see that the general public is fairly represented.

Oral Answers to Questions — DUNDEE HARBOUR (WRECK OBSTRUCTION).

Mr. STURROCK: 62.
asked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that the steamer "Clan Shaw" was struck by a mine at the entrance to the River Tay in January, I917, and, as a, result, foundered in the fairway of that river, the wreck causing an obstruction to traffic entering and leaving the port of Dundee; whether different Government Departments which have been approached in the matter of liability for the removal of the wreck have repudiated any obligation in this respect; and whether he can state any reason whatsoever why a local corporation like the
Dundee Harbour Trust should be financially burdened by having to undertake the cost of removing the wreck of a steamer which foundered as a direct consequence of an act of war?

Sir A. GEDDES: I have been asked to reply to this question. I am aware of the facts connected with the foundering of this vessel within the control of the Dundee Harbour Trustees. The latter, as the harbour authority, are the only body empowered by Statute—namely, Section 530 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894— to deal with vessels which have been sunk, stranded, or abandoned in their harbour or in an approach thereto, and they are entitled to reimburse themselves for the expenses out of the proceeds, if any, of the sale of the wreck. The Act does not take into account the cause of such a casualty which usually arises, as in this case, from circumstances beyond the control of the harbour authority. While the responsibility for keeping their undertaking safe for navigation rests with the harbour trustees, His Majesty's Government, in response to an appeal by the trustees, have offered to defray, ex gratia, one-third of the cost of removing the wreck.

Mr. STURROCK: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it has taken the different. Government Departments over two years to come to a decision to offer one-third of the cost of removing this wreck; is it not a fact that, owing to the long delay involved, no salvage is obtainable from the wreck; and, in these circumstances, does he recognise the great hardship upon the Dundee Harbour Board of having to pay two-thirds of the cost?

Sir A. GEDDES: I examined this case personally a very short time ago, and, with all the facts before me, I came to the conclusion that the scheme we approved was, in all the circumstances, the fairest we could devise.

Mr. STURROCK: Can the right hon. Gentleman not see his way to grant a bigger increase to the Dundee Harbour Board; and, before coming to a final decision, will he consult the Secretary of State for War?

Sir A. GEDDES: I am afraid there is nothing I can add to what I have said except that we will certainly keep an eye on the case and be prepared to reconsider it.

Oral Answers to Questions — KOREA (PERSECUTION OF NATIVE CHRISTIANS).

Lord ROBERT CECIL: 66.
asked the Prime Minister whether the Government have received any information as to the persecution of native Christians in Korea; and, if so, whether he will lay papers upon the Table giving all the available particulars on the subject?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: Reports have been received from His Majesty's Embassy in Tokio and from His Majesty's Consul-General in Seoul, regarding the recent disturbances in Korea. A passive movement in favour of the independence of Korea was started last February by Korean students in Tokio, and later in Seoul, and subsequently spread to other parts of Korea. This movement was rigorously suppressed by the Japanese authorities, but in the reports received by His Majesty's Government there is nothing to show that native Christians originated the movement, or that the Japanese in suppressing it directed their efforts especially against the Christian population. Some of the latter doubtless suffered during the disturbance, and an English Missionary in the company of some Koreans was severely handled at one place by the Japanese gendarmes. The Japanese Government, however, at once conducted a special investigation, and expressed their regret at the occurrence, and their willingness to pay compensation. We have no papers which can properly be laid.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH RAILWAY MATERIAL (FRANCE).

Mr. HOUSTON: 67.
asked the Prime Minister whether arrangements have been made by the British Government to make a gift to the South African Government of a large quantity of British railway material now in France, and which was mostly sent from Great Britain; whether that material represents a value of about £500,000; and whether, in view of the great shortage of rolling stock and other material on British railways, he can state what arrangements are being made for re-equipping British railways?

Mr. KELLAWAY: I have been asked to answer this question. Arrangements have been made to sell to the South African Government a quantity of 75 lb. flat-bottomed rails; payment to be made from
a grant of £500,000 by the British Government in respect of services rendered by the South African Government in connection with the transport of troops and material during the War. The rails to be supplied are not required by the British railway companies, there being sufficient material of this class to meet home requirements in addition to those of South Africa. No rolling stock is to be sent to South Africa, and special arrangements are being made to bring over as rapidly as possible to this country all the surplus railway material in France suitable, for the re-equipment of British railways.

Oral Answers to Questions — REAR-ADMIRAL VON REUTER

Mr. HURD: 70.
asked the Prime Minister whether there are any reasons why special consideration should be shown for Rear-Admiral von Reuter, who broke his nation's vows in respect of the Armistice; whether on 24th June he was specially honoured by being met with a motor car at Oswestry Station instead of being marched under armed escort to the Park-hill Camp, as is the usual practice with enemy officers; whether also on 3rd July the English commandant of the officer prisoners' camp at Oswestry, a lieutenant-colonel, himself conducted this German prisoner from Oswestry to Donington Hall in a closed motor car in place of a subaltern with armed escort; what are the conditions under which the prisoner is now being confined; and why, in view of the grave offences which he admits, is he not placed in solitary confinement in a military detention barracks pending trial?

Mr. CHURCHILL: I have not received any report upon this case, but if the facts are correctly described by my hon. Friend they do not appear to call for any special inquiry.

Oral Answers to Questions — EX-KAISER (EXTRADITION).

Sir HENRY DALZIEL: 74.
asked the Prime Minister whether any communications have yet taken place between the Allies and Holland in regard to the extradition of the ex-Kaiser; and, if so, with what result?

Mr. BONAR LAW: No formal representations have yet been made to the Dutch Government by the Allied Governments, but the necessary steps are being taken in the matter.

Sir H. DALZIEL: Has any unofficial communication passed?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I think I would rather not say.

Lieut.-Colonel A. MURRAY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that nobody particularly wishes the ex-Kaiser to be brought over here?

Oral Answers to Questions — MR. CHURCHILL'S NEWSPAPER CONTRIBUTIONS.

Mr. ARNOLD: 75.
asked the Prime Minister whether the recent articles contributed by the Secretary of State for War to the "Weekly Dispatch" newspaper represented the views of the Government?

Mr. BONAR LAW: The articles in question are in the same position as the speeches of my right hon. Friend.

Mr. ARNOLD: Is there any rule or custom against Cabinet Ministers making contributions to the Press?

Mr. BONAR LAW: No, I think not. It must depend on each particular case. There are many occasions when it may be right for Cabinet Ministers to make communications to the Press, such as interviews in connection with the War Loan.

Mr. ARNOLD: Are we to understand that the work of a Cabinet Minister is not a whole-time job?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I think that would be a great mistake.

Earl WINTERTON: Is it not a fact that the members of the Radical Government in I906 constantly wrote articles in the newspapers, and they were supported by hon. Gentlemen opposite?

Oral Answers to Questions — NAVY, ARMY, AND AIR FORCES (ESTIMATES).

Sir DONALD MACLEAN: 76.
asked the Lord Privy Seal when he proposes to re-introduce the Estimates for the Navy, Army, and Air Forces in accordance with his promise?

Mr. BONAR LAW: My right hon. Friend is mistaken in saying that I gave any promise that new Estimates would be introduced, though I said that the suggestion would be considered. I did say, how-
ever, that I thought there ought to be a discussion of the whole subject in the House when we revert to a peace footing, but I do not think that the time has yet come when it would be useful to have that discussion.

Oral Answers to Questions — WOMEN'S EMANCIPATION BILL.

Captain BENN: 77.
asked the Lord Privy Seal what steps the Government propose to take in view of their defeat on Friday?

Mr. BONAR LAW: The subject has not yet been considered by the Government.

Captain BENN: Do the Government intend to accept the decision of the House?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I have said that we have not considered it, so how can I say?

Oral Answers to Questions — OLD AGE PENSIONS.

Sir ROBERT NEWMAN: 78.
asked Minister of Health whether the Committee that is considering the question of old age pensions is likely to report in time to enable the Government to effect reforms in the relief of the aged poor which is so urgently needed and which, if postponed till the autumn or winter, is likely to add to the anxiety and suffering of the aged poor of this country?

Colonel SANDERS: I have been asked to reply to this question. I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which was given on the 3rd instant to my hon. Friend the Member for the Elland Division (Mr. Ramsden).

Oral Answers to Questions — TELEPHONE SERVICE.

Sir R. COOPER: 81.
asked the Postmaster-General whether there will be any material delay in the provision of telephones in cases where it is shown that reconstructed businesses urgently require this service for the daily conduct of their trade?

The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Illingworth): Where spare line and exchange plant is available, no serious delay should occur. Unfortunately, there are many districts in which—owing to the enforced suspension of construction work during the War—the spare underground wires and exchange plant are exhausted r and some time must elapse before the new
works required for the extension of the telephone system in those areas can be completed?

Sir R. COOPER: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate the importance of trying to give the most rapid facilities to reconstruct businesses?

Mr. ILLINGWORTH: Yes, most certainly I do, and I am doing everything possible to do so.

Captain TERRELL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it takes five months to get a new instrument installed in London to-day?

Mr. ILLINGWORTH: Oh, no, there may be one or two cases where the lines may be exhausted or where there is no room on a switch board, making it necessary to make a new switch-board. If the hon. and gallant Member will let me know of any particular case, I will inquire into it.

Captain TERRELL: I shall have much pleasure in letting you know.

Oral Answers to Questions — CABLES TO FAR EAST (DELAY IN SERVICE).

Lieut-Commander ASTBURY: 83.
asked the Postmaster-General if he will explain why, notwithstanding the written assurance given to the president of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce some three weeks ago that cable repairs had been effected, and that improvement might soon be confidently expected, the delays in telegrams to and from the Far East and other overseas markets are still as serious as ever, three weeks out and home being still repeatedly occupied for a cabled question and answer?

Sir OWEN PHILIPPS: 89.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware of the delay in the cable facilities between Far Eastern ports and this country which has been experienced by business firms during the past months, and that cable messages occupy a minimum of six days in arriving and sometimes occupy nine or ten days in transmission: and whether he is in a position to take any effective steps to accelerate the transmission of cablegrams so as to relieve a state of affairs prejudicial to British business interests in the Far East?

Mr. ILLINGWORTH: Since the commencement of last month the delay on outward full-rate telegrams for Egypt,
India, and the Far East has been reduced by about a day, the time occupied in transmission being now as follows:


Egypt
…
2 days


India
…
4 days


Straits Settlement
…
4 days


China
…
6 days


In the case of full-rate telegrams in the homeward direction there has been no improvement, the time of transmission ranging from five to seven days. This is due to the larger volume of the homeward traffic and to the continued interruption of an important cable in the Mediterranean. I am assured, however, that every possible effort is being made to restore this cable, and that its repair may be expected at an early date. As regards the improvement in the service to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, I would refer the hon. Member to the answer given to the hon. Member for Acton (Sir H. Brittain) on the 3rd instant.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: In view of Peace having been signed, can any assistance be given to merchants by a wireless code?

Mr. ILLINGWORTH: There is a certain amount of wireless, but not very much.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: May we expect more facilities by wireless in the near future?

Mr. ILLINGWORTH: Yes, there is, in fact, a scheme which I hope will be carried out before long to extend the wireless very considerably.

Oral Answers to Questions — SELECT COMMITTEES.

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA BLLL.

Colonel YATE: I beg to ask you, Sir, a question (of which I have given you private notice)—whether you will state what is the recognised constitution of a Select Committee; whether it is necessarily a Committee composed of representatives of the different parties in the House or whether it is a Committee composed of Members not previously pledged to any such views, but who will consider impartially the evidence submitted to them and draft their report accordingly; and whether it is usual on such Select Committees that both the
Minister and the Undersecretary of the Department concerned should be members and vote on the decisions to be arrived at?

Mr. SPEAKER: In reply to the hon. and gallant Gentleman, I have to say that a Select Committee is a Committee of fifteen persons ordinarily, unless the House otherwise order. The Committee is appointed by the House itself, but the names which are suggested to the House are names proposed by the Whips representing the different parties. The numbers upon the Committee are proportionately in accordance with the numbers of the various parties in the House. With regard to the question whether there are any cases in which two Ministers have sat upon the same Select Committee, I have had the records searched, and I can only find two cases, although there may be more. In I891 on the Private Bill Procedure (Scotland) Bill there were two Ministers appointed by the House to sit upon the Select Committee, and again in I392 on the Telegraphs Bill two Ministers were appointed. I have not discovered any case in which both the Minister and the Under-Secretary have been appointed.

Colonel YATE: Considering that we have now a Coalition Government in power, and that the old party politics are more or less in abeyance, could not the opportunity be taken to deal with great Imperial questions on Imperial lines instead of on party political lines? I ask the question with reference to the case of the Government of India. The Secretary of State for India informed us on Thursday that in the nomination of names to the Joint Select Committee on this Bill he had submitted the names of so many Conservatives, so many Liberals, and so many Labour representatives. The result, I see, is that of the seven members so selected, six are the very members who spoke in favour of the right hon. Gentleman's own particular scheme in the Debate on the Second Reading. Consequently, when the representatives of the Governments of the Provinces in India, who have submitted an alternative scheme, come to present their case before the Committee, they will have to face am adverse majority of six to one. I would, therefore, ask whether such a Committee should not be appointed on Imperial lines instead of on party political lines in England, and whether, considering that
there is no precedent for both the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary being members of such a Committee and voting upon that Committee, an alternation, could not also be made in that respect?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and gallant Gentleman is asking me to override the decision of the House. That is impossible. All the criticisms which he has made should have been made, and indeed were made, on the nomination of that Committee. The House has not accepted the view of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, and I certainly could not reverse the decision to which the House deliberately came after discussion.

Captain ORMSBY-GORE: May I ask if the hon. and gallant Gentleman is in order in suggesting that Select Committees appointed by the House are biassed and will not consider the evidence put before them? As one of the members of this Committee, I wish to repudiate hotly the hon. and gallant Gentleman's suggestion that I go on the Committee prejudiced in any way. I wish to hear the evidence put before me.

Sir R. COOPER: Has the time not come when the thirty odd independent Members of this House should have some representation on Select Committees?

Mr. SPEAKER: An independent Member means that the Member does not belong to any party, and the result would be that every one of these thirty Members would in each case have to be put on Select Committees of fifteen. I do not suppose that that is what the hon. Member intends.

Colonel YATE: May I ask the Leader of the House if he is willing to consider the advisability of dealing with this great Imperial question of the future of the government of India on really Imperial lines?

Mr. BONAR LAW: I really cannot see any cause of complaint. I accept the view which was expressed by my hon. and gallant Friend behind me, that those who are appointed will look at the evidence in an impartial manner. As regards the House of Commons, there was no Division on the Second Reading, and almost no speeches against it, and it is therefore natural that the majority of the Committee should be in favour. Taking the Committee as a whole, I think it is a very impartial one.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: May I ask whether we shall have the same full rights on the Report stage of revision of the Bill as we have in the ordinary way?

Mr. SPEAKER: Certainly. The fact that the Bill has been sent to a Select Committee does not debar the House from considering it on Report in the same way as any other Bill.

Mr. STEWART: Will there be any Committee stage on this Bill?

Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Will there not be an ordinary Committee stage in this House as well?

Mr. SPEAKER: Yes; the Bill will have to be taken in Committee here.

Mr. STEWART: That is all right.

Oral Answers to Questions — IMPRISONMENT OF A MEMBER.

Mr. SPEAKER: informed the House that he had received the following letter relating to the imprisonment of a Member:

"The Moorings,

Athlone,

1st July, 1919.

Sir,—I have the honour to report to you that Mr. Laurence Ginnell, M.P. for county Westmeath, was, on 7th June, at Mullingar, sentenced to four months' imprisonment for unlawful assembly by a Court of Summary Jurisdiction, under the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act.

I have the honour to be, Sir,

Your obedient servant,

John BYRNE,

Resident Magistrate.

The Right Honourable The Speaker,

House of Commons."

Oral Answers to Questions — TREATY OF PEACE.

Mr. SPEAKER: informed the House that he had received the following communications relating to the signing of the Treaty of Peace:

(Translation.)

"The Spanish Congress of Deputies, on receiving the official information of the signing of Peace, agreed that it should be put on record how they rejoice at receiving the communication of an event which is so fortunate for all humanity, and that their most cordial congratulations should be addressed to that House and to the Parliaments of the several allied and associated Nations. I have the honour and satisfaction of doing in the name of the Congress.

(Signed) MARQUES DE FIGUEROS.

President of the Congress.

(Translation.)

"Buenos Aires,

5th July, 1919.

To the Speaker of the House of Commons, London.

The Chamber of Deputies of the Argentine nation over which I preside has resolved to convey to the Parliament of your country its feeling of unanimous rejoicing at the celebration of the Peace which the world awaited. The signing of the historic Act of Versailles has definitely assured to all the nations of the earth their ideals of justice and humanity,

I am, with the highest consideration,

(Signed) ARTURO GOYENCHE,

President.

CARLOS GONZALEZ BONORINO,

Secretary."

Mr. SPEAKER: The House will probably wish me to make suitable acknowledgment.

Mr. J. JONES: When will peace be declared in Ireland?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted at this day's Sitting from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. Bonar Law.]

Sir D. MACLEAN: Is it proposed to sit late to-night?

Mr. BONAR LAW: This Motion is put down in the ordinary way, and I hope that a little extra time may enable us to facilitate business. It is necessary to get on with the Second Order on the Paper [Supply, 29th May, Report].

Question put, and agreed to.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

That they have agreed to,—

Prevention of Anthrax Bill,

Disabled Men (Facilities for Employment) Bill,

Reigate Corporation Bill, without Amendment.

Government of India Bill,—The Lords have appointed a Committee, consisting-of seven Lords, to join with a Committee of the Commons to consider the Government of India Bill, pursuant to the Message of the Commons of the 7th of July. The Lords propose that the Joint Committee do meet in Committee Room A on Thursday, the 10th of July, at 2.30 o'clock.

Orders of the Day — MINISTRY OF WAYS AND COMMUNICATIONS BILL.

As amended (in the Standing Committee), further considered.

CLAUSE 8.—(Power to Establish Transport Services.)

(1) It shall be lawful for the Minister to establish, and work transport services by land or water, and to acquire either by agreement or compulsorily such land or easements or rights in or over land, to construct such works, and to do all such other things as may be necessary for the purpose:

Provided that—
(i) if the establishment of any such service involve an original capital expenditure exceeding one million pounds, or the acquisition of land compulsorily, or the breaking up of any roads, the Minister shall not exercise his powers unless authorised to do so by Order in Council a draft whereof has been approved by a Resolution passed by both Houses of Parliament, and the Order may incorporate the provisions of the Lands Clauses Acts, subject to such modifications as may be specified in the Order, being modifications of those Acts made or authorised to be made by the Development and Road Improvements Funds Act, 1909, or any other enactment, and the Order may also incorporate or apply any enactments relating to the construction and maintenance of the works in question; and
(ii) where it appears to the Minister that the establishment of any such service could properly be undertaken by the owners of any existing undertaking, the Minister shall not himself establish the service without first giving to such owners an opportunity of establishing the service, and where such an opportunity is given to the owner of an undertaking of which possession has been retained or taken under Section three of this Act and those owners prefer that the establishment of the service should be undertaken by themselves rather than by the Minister, they may require the Minister to give them directions under that Section to that effect, but shall not be deemed to have thereby concurred in those directions.

(2) The expenses of working services established by the Minister under this Section, shall be paid out of the revenues derived there from, and the Minister shall keep such accounts of the receipts from and expenditure on the undertakings and in such form, and those accounts shall be audited in such manner as the Treasury may prescribe.

Mr. WILSON-FOX: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1), after the word "that" ["Provided that"], to insert the words,
no new transport undertaking shall be established by the Ministry until an estimate of the capital expenditure required to complete it has been approved by the Treasury.
This Motion, with which the hon. Member for Oxford City (Mr. Marriott), and the hon. and gallant Member for Burton (Colonel Gretton) are associated with me, was put on the Paper in connection with the Money Resolution for the Ways and Communications Bill, and was considered just before the Bill went to a Committee upstairs. I was unfortunately through indisposition unable to take any part in the discussion on that Resolution in this House, and for the same reason, although I was a member of the Standing Committee to which the Bill was referred. I was unable to take any action with regard to it upstairs. Neither of my hon. Friends who are associated with me in this Amendment were on that Committee, and very little consideration was given to this point upstairs. We, therefore, thought, bearing in mind the unsatisfactory manner in which the Bill left the House, we were justified in putting the matter down for further consideration on Report. It will be in the recollection of the House that many Members speaking on the Money Resolution, including the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Peebles (Sir D. Maclean), expressed the view that either the Standing Committee upstairs or the Report stage would really be the proper time for the consideration of this question. I do not propose to make any lengthy remarks in submitting the Amendment, as I understand that the Government are ready to accept it. It was not designed in any sense to be an Amendment inimical to the Government, but in these important matters we who are responsible for the Amendment felt that the House was not reserving to itself a sufficient measure of control over the vast sums which are intended to be expended for the purposes of this and similar Bills, and we felt that all the more strongly because the Treasury itself recently informed the Select Committee on National Expenditure that the control which it used to exercise before the War has not as yet been by any means re-established, and that even if it were re-established the Treasury has not the power to enforce its-will upon other Departments.
4.0 P.M.
The Government, on the Money Resolution, gave a pledge which they have carried out, I think, in the Clause which we
are considering, that a Treasury official should be directly appointed in the Department of the Minister of Ways and Communications. This will make the connection between that Department and the Treasury much closer and more complete than is, I think, the case in any other of the Government Departments at present. But we felt that that alone was not sufficient, because, if the Treasury had not any direct Parliamentary authority to sanction estimates before the money was spent, even the fact that it had a better source of information than is usually the case would not really serve the purpose which we had in view. I think the House will agree that, if that appointment is supplemented by the giving of power to the Treasury to call for and sanction estimates before the work is proceeded with, then the power of control which this House desires to establish will be complete. I am very glad indeed that the Minister-designate has seen his way to accept that view. I should like at the same time to say that in framing this Amendment we had no distrust whatsoever of the Minister-designate. I myself had the opportunity of seeing and inquiring into the work of that great Department which he established at Rich-borough, and I was one of those who reported to the last Parliament that we considered that that work was justified, not only as a war measure but on business grounds. I have great pleasure in making that statement. Our conclusion was come to after very full inquiry. Similarly, I had the advantage of inquiring on the spot into some of the Minister-designate's work in France, and I have also seen Chepstow. The result of the inquiries which I then made has not inspired me with any distrust of him. Quite the contrary. He is a very practical man of affairs when he gets to work on business which he thoroughly understands. I am glad to say that, in order to remove any misapprehension as to the reasons for this Amendment. It is a question of principle with me and with those with whom I am associated, and I hope the principle which will be established by the Government's acceptance of this Amendment will be acted upon in other cases. It is our duty, I maintain, to see that in the expenditure of the vast sums of public money which will have to be expended if the reconstrue-
tion programme is to be carried out properly and successfully, all reasonable business precautions are taken to ensure that the cost is counted before great works are embarked upon, and that the nation does not stand committed to expenditure which cannot be foreseen, and which, later on, if a complete original estimate is not made in the first instance, may be found to amount to a far greater sum than even its authors contemplated.
I may be permitted to say that there are two other Amendments in my name, a little further down on the Paper, which are really consequential upon this Amendment, and I will reserve any further remarks until those arrive.

Mr. MARRIOTT: I desire to say only a very few words in seconding the Amendment which has been proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth. In my view, he has put the whole matter on precisely the right basis. This Amendment is not moved in any spirit of hostility to the main proposals of the Government contained in this Bill. It is not intended in any way at all to impair the value of the Bill or to lessen or curtail its efficiency in working; but I and the hon. Members with whom I have been associated in this matter feel very strongly that, as a matter of principle, this Amendment ought to be pressed. My hon. Friend has reminded the House that on several occasions, when the Financial Resolution was before a Committee of this House, we did endeavour to obtain from the Government a more precise estimate of the expenses which were likely to arise in connection with this Bill. We perfectly understood that precise figures were not available and could not be produced, but we made those Motions in support of the principle, which I desire very strongly to emphasise. Over and over again, in the course of the last Parliament, the Committee on National Expenditure proposed that the White Paper, which is issued on the introduction of a Bill involving any expenditure of public money, should embody as precise a statement as possible of the figures, and should be in the hands of hon. Members before they were asked to go into Committee on the Bill. We pressed that upon the Government on several successive occasions before some of the Members of this House went into Committee on this Bill, but we were unable to obtain complete satisfaction in that regard, and therefore we thought it our duty on the Report stage,
not having had an opportunity of dealing with the matter upstairs, to put this Amendment upon the Paper, and I am very glad indeed to hear that the Government have intimated that they will accept it.

The MINISTER (Designate) of WAYS and COMMUNICATIONS (Sir Eric Geddes): There is no difference between the Government and the Movers of this Amendment in what we desire. Subject to the alteration of one word in it, which is merely a matter of drafting, the Government will accept it. I would like to alter the word "undertaking" to "service." We have used the word "service" throughout. With regard to the question of Treasury control, nothing definite, of course, can be done until Parliament has decided whether this Ministry is to be set up or not, but I think it will be of interest if, in reply to the remarks of the hon. Member for Tamworth (Mr. Wilson-Fox), I were to tell the House that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with my full accordance and agreement, has obtained, he hopes, the services of a very eminent outside business accountant, who will undertake the financial side of the matter on behalf of the Treasury, supervising the work of the new Ministry, in which he will represent the Treasury; and he will be charged with scrutinising everything that it does from the financial point of view.

Mr. RENWICK: I listened with very great interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Tamworth, but I cannot see that he has carried us much farther in the direction in which some of us wish to go. We desire that no sum exceeding 1,000,000 shall be expended for transport services without the consent of this House. This Amendment does not mention Parliament at all. It simply mentions the Treasury, which is a very different matter. The Treasury may consent to certain expenditure without Parliament knowing anything about it.

Mr. WILSON-FOX: We have a subsequent Amendment which deals with that point.

Mr. RENWICK: We are not dealing with a subsequent Amendment, but with the present Amendment.

Lord ROBERT CECIL: This is good as far as it goes.

Mr. RENWICK: It does not deal with any subsequent Amendment. We
want control by the House of Commons. If the right hon. Gentleman would substitute ''Parliament" for "Treasury" we might agree to it.
I should like to take your ruling, Mr. Speaker, upon another point. The hon. Member for Tamworth said— I do not know with what authority—that he thought this Amendment would make some future Amendments upon this Clause consequential. I have two Amendments on the Paper later on which I hope will not be regarded as consequential. I think they are extremely important, and I should like to take your opinion as to whether they are in order. I am very anxious to move them.

Mr. SPEAKER: There is nothing to prevent the hon. Member moving his Amendments. This Amendment is a separate proviso coming first. His Amendments are to the proviso which appears in the Bill.

Sir D. MACLEAN: I congratulate the Mover and Seconder of this Amendment upon the start which they have made on the Report stage in the direction of establishing some form of Treasury control in the Bill itself. That is far more important than any undertaking by any Minister, however competent and reliable ho may be. I hope that subsequent Amendments will make it perfectly clear that, in the case of each transport undertaking, not only the original expenditure, but any subsequent expenditure, shall be a continuous operation. I understand that that was the intention of the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill.

Sir E. GEDDES indicated assent.

Amendment made in the proposed

Amendment: Leave out the word "undertaking" and insert instead thereof the word "service." — [Sir E. Geddes.]

Proposed words, as amended, there inserted in the Bill.

Mr. WILSON-FOX: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1, i), after the word "if" ["if the establishment of any such service "], to insert the words
such estimate as in the preceding paragraph provided in connection with.
The object of this Amendment is to have a really definite figure on which the House can go in connection with the definition which comes later on of the amount which may be spent after permission has been obtained. I understand that the Government are willing to accept this also. The
whole point is that "an original capital expenditure" is a somewhat vague phrase, and I should prefer to have it in the Bill—and I understand the right hon. Gentleman accepts this—that the test shall be the estimate which, under the Amendment that has just been passed, will now have to be submitted to and approved by the Treasury before any work is undertaken in connection with any new service, and that the rather vague phrase "original capital expenditure" shall not be the test as to whether the amount exceeds the limit which is fixed later on in the Clause. I beg to move.

Mr. MARRIOTT: I beg to second the Amendment.

Mr. RENWICK: I am a little uncertain as to the meaning of this Amendment and as to whether, if it is passed, my two Amendments which follow will be in order. If they are not, I should like to take the present opportunity of making some remarks on the subject.

Sir E. GEDDES: We accept them both.

Mr. RENWICK: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. As I shall have the opportunity of speaking later upon the matter I will reserve my remarks until then.

Amendment agreed to.

Sir F. BANBURY: I beg to move in Sub-section (1, i) to leave out the word ''service," and to insert instead thereof the word "services."
The object of this Amendment is to carry out what I, and I believe most Members of the House, understood was the undertaking given by the Government that no services should be established without coming to this House and moving a Resolution describing what the new services were to be and their cost, provided that the cost did not exceed £l,000,000. The words in the Bill do not carry out that undertaking, because they will enable the Government to spend any number of million pounds, without the consent of the House, provided that each million pounds 1s spent on a different service. I do not think that was the intention of the House when they agreed to the proposal of the Government, and I am rather inclined to think it is not the intention of the Government. Probably in putting in their Amendment they overlooked that fact. The Clause as it stands provides:
If the establishment of any such service involve an original capital expenditure exceeding one million pounds, or the acquisition of land compulsorily, or the breaking up of any roads, the Minister shall not exercise his powers unless authorised to do so by Order in Council, a draft whereof has been approved by a Resolution passed by both Houses of Parliament.
That is a very slight check to put upon the Government. Such a resolution only requires one day for its debate. It might be passed in extraordinary circumstances. It might even be passed on a Friday, when not more than 180 Members are present. It is quite clear that every precaution must be taken to see that the Government shall not be able to spend, during these two years, large sums of money without the consent of the House being obtained in such an easy way as by a resolution debated on one day. I am glad that we have the Solicitor-General here, because he would be able to bring his legal knowledge to bear on the question whether what I suggest might take place. There are twelve principal railways in the country. It will be possible under this Clause to spend £999,000 on each of those twelve principal railways, making a total expenditure of £11,988,000 in any one year, without the consent of Parliament. The Government will not have to come down and ask even for a Resolution which could be passed in one day. I cannot speak for the Government, and I do not know what was in their mind, but I am quite certain that it was not in the mind of the House of Commons that powers of this sort should be given. The Clause as it stands is quite delusive. It affords practically no, or very little, precaution. It is absolutely necessary in the interests of economy that the Clause should be amended. I am glad to see the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Joynson-Hicks) in his place, because in Committee upstairs he was in charge of the Debate when the understanding was arrived at that the amount should be limited to £1,000,000. I have been endeavouring to find that Debate, but cannot. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman knows where it is. I think it was the Minister-designate who gave the undertaking. There should be no misunderstanding on this matter. If there was misunderstanding, now is the time to put it right. I am quite certain that the vast majority of the Members of the House do not desire that more than £1,000,000 shall be spent without the authority of the House in any one year during these two years.

Mr. WILSON-FOX: That is by the Department.

Sir F. BAN BURY: Yes, by the Department. If it is found necessary in the interests of transport to spend more than this sum of money, what could be more easy than to come clown to the House and put a Resolution on the Paper which could be. passed in four or five hours, if necessary by suspending the Eleven o'Clock Rule, which is becoming rather the custom, and in a few hours the whole thing will be done. That would preserve to a certain extent, although not very efficiently, the control of this House over expenditure. I ask for the support of the Leader of the Opposition on this point. His party were instrumental in depriving another place of any control over expenditure. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that this House should in no way relax that control, but rather that it should strengthen it. As my Amendment is in that direction, I trust it will have the support of the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. RENWICK: This Amendment gives an opportunity to the right hon. Gentleman to answer an appeal which I and other hon. Members have made over and over again. We want to know definitely, is the expenditure limited to a total of £1,000,000, or is it £1,000,000 upon any particular scheme which the right hon. Gentleman may take in hand? I sat throughout the whole of the proceedings in Committee upstairs and on several occasions tried to get this information, but did not succeed. The Clause is extremely vague. It may mean either an expenditure not exceeding £1,000,000 on each scheme or a total of, £1,000,000 for all schemes. That makes a tremendous difference. The right hon. Gentleman said a few minutes ago that he was going to accept my Amendment which stands next upon this very important point. If ha will give us an undertaking that it is to be an expenditure up to £1,000,000 only without coming to the House for further powers, we shall all be satisfied, but we are in a state of uncertainty at present and unless we get an assurance we are bound to press him until we get a satisfactory reply.
Let me give the House an illustration of what the expenditure of £1,000,000 means. I have looked up Lloyd's Register of Shipping and find there are ten of the principal railways who are large shipowners, including the Midland, the Great Eastern, the Great Western, the South-Eastern and
Chatham, the London and South-Western, the London and North-Western, the North-Eastern, the Lancashire and Yorkshire, and the London and North-Western, and Lancashire and Yorkshire jointly. If these railways are handed over to the Department it will mean that the Department would be the largest shipowner in the country. Very few hon. Members have any idea of the very important fleets owned by these railways. Possibly, if the railway companies' fleets are not up to the mark, the right hon. Gentleman will order a new fleet for them. We shall then be up against an expenditure of £10,000,000 or £12,000,000. We cannot say that it shall not be done unless we limit the amount to £1,000,000 altogether. The Government have power to set up transport services by land or water. Land we can understand. Water means by sea. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that they are only taking powers to set up services by sea such as are contained in their statutory powers. Probably they are, but their statutory powers are very large. Many of these railway companies carry on coastal services not only from one British port to another but also on the Continent. There is the service between Brest and Hamburg; the London and North-Western Railway Company rune steamers to and from these Continental ports. I would ask hon. Members who represent agricultural interests to remember that in the pre-war days the railway companies carried fruit, foodstuffs, and other products in competition with those of British agriculturists at a through rate from the Continent cheaper than they were carried from Kent or any other county. There were always enormous complaints about that. We appealed to the railway companies to keep separate accounts for the ships, showing the loss or gain, but we could not get them. They are wrapped up in what are called exceptional rates. In connection with the railways, the right hon. Gentleman has to get over a deficiency of £100,000,000 a year. Probably he will do that,by increasing the oversea coasting traffic or the port-to-port traffic. He told us that he had in view the requirements of transport in connection with housing schemes. That clearly shows that he had in view the competition between one port and another. Does he want power to expend £l,000,000 upon one particular scheme or £1,000,000 as the total on all schemes? If the total is £1,000,000 for all schemes without obtaining further powers
in the House, I should be perfectly satisfied. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will give us the undertaking we vainly asked for upstairs and which I ask for again. I want a clear answer to the question I have put to him.

Mr. WILSON-FOX: While I sympathise to a very large extent with the view expressed by the right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) and the last speaker as to what is desired, I do not think the way proposed in this Amendment would be the right and proper way to do it. It seems to be an attempt to kill two birds with one stone. At present we are dealing with one bird only. We are trying to find how a limitation can be imposed upon the power of the Department in reference to one single new work. If it is also proposed to limit the Department to an amount which they would expend on all new works put together, that would be better done separately than, in the way now proposed. As I read the Bill, the million included in this Clause is definitely intended to apply not to any amount which may be spent in any one year, but to the amount which, on estimate approved by the Treasury, may be contemplated as the expenditure on a single new service. The actual expenditure might be spread over a number of years. I do see a certain difficulty in fixing a maximum limit which may be spent on all the new services in the aggregate, because it will not be possible for the Ministry to prepare at one given moment all the estimates for the services which they will require over a long period. These things will have to be dealt with as they arise. Therefore. they may prepare further estimates for a number of new services, some of which may require Parliamentary sanction before they are undertaken, while others may require only Treasury sanction. They might quite properly say in connection with those that they wish to undertake at the present moment that they amount to only a certain amount, and then they would have nothing to fear. Here they might be confronted with the necessity for going to the House on the data which they have collected during the past six months.

Sir F. BANBURY: All that would happen would be that they would come down to the House and get Parliamentary powers, which they could get in one day.

Mr. WILSON-FOX: My right hon. Friend's explanation does not satisfy me. It appears to me to be the intention of this Amendment that the programme shall be made available at a given moment, and if it exceeds the limit to be fixed by the Bill, which at present is not fixed, they have got to prepare this programme altogether. As far as I can see, the necessities of the case will require a piecemeal preparation of a programme.

Sir F. BANBURY: Under the Amendment the Department will have to submit an estimate for all services that they are going to carry out, to the Treasury, and, having obtained the sanction of the Treasury, if it is under £1,000.000 they can go on; if it is over £1,000,000 all they will have to do is to give notice that there will be a Resolution, and they can get the Resolution in the ordinary way.

Mr. WILSON-FOX: At the same time-it appears to me that there will have to be two distinct limits. That is, the limit for the individual and the limit for the aggregate services. At present the Bill is framed only on the basis that there is a limit for the single services, and to alter that to the aggregate services would, I submit, destroy the value of the provision which has just been inserted in the Bill and replace it with another which will not. fully meet the necessities of the case, and which will probably require consideration of the amount from quite a. different point of view from that which applies in the case of a single service.

Sir E. GEDDES: The Debate on this, so far as the Mover and Seconder arc concerned, is practically what was said in Committee, and when my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Sir F, Banbury) says he has always understood that it was to be an aggregate million, and that that is; really the purpose of putting in the plural "services," I think that he mast be forgetting what he said in Standing Committee upstairs, when, in reply to the remark of an hon. Member, he said:
I thought it was the amount to be spent on any one scheme. It will be open to us what the amount shall be. Personally, I think a million is too large, but we can reduce it when we come to the Government Amendment.
There was no doubt in the right hon. Baronet's mind at the time that it was a million on any one scheme, and not an aggregate million. T would like to remind the House of what my right hon. Friend.
the Leader of the House said in the Debate on the Financial Resolution on the 1st of April:
Perhaps it may be found when the thing is discussed upstairs that some other arrangement may be better, but we contemplate in every case of expenditure of a large sum on any particular scheme—put it, say, at £1,000,000, not in any particular year, but upon the whole scheme— submitting the matter to the House of Commons. If one were trying to get away from this obligation he might divide it into a lot of smaller amounts. That is not what we mean. Whenever there is a scheme which involves as much as £1,000,000, we will, before it is undertaken, submit it to the House of Commons either in an estimate or in some other way."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st April, 1919, col. 1114, Vol. 114.]
The Committee upstairs passed a million, and in the Debate upstairs I said, speaking for the Government, that we very much hoped that the Committee would not accept the proposal to make it an aggregate million, because that is really stultifying the objects of the Bill. No one can tell how many services we will want that will go to make up £1,000,000, and if the Committee upstairs or this House desired to limit the expenditure which we can incur on a new service, then I would point, out that the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle (Mr. Renwick) as to the subsidised and assisted railway companies that we should perhaps allot £999,000 to each of the twelve railway companies, are not applicable to this case, because this is a new service. If Parliament wishes to limit the expenditure which the Minister can incur without coming back to Parliament, then the appropriate way to do it is the way in which my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London proposed in Committee—to limit the amount on any one service, and not to limit the aggregate. That is a far sounder way of controlling the expenditure, in my opinion. In Committee I suggested that we were in no way wedded to a million for the new services, and I gave the reason. The reason was that we are obliged, under the Bill as it stands — I think we have passed the Clause—to come to this House before we break up a road or compulsorily acquire land, and it is inconceivable that a scheme involving as much as £1,000,000 could be undertaken without one of those two things occurring which would bring us to Parliament, and, while I urge the House to reject this Amendment at this stage, for she reasons which I have ventured to give, I would like at the same time to say that when we come to limit the amount—there
are Amendments further down on the Paper—the Government will be prepared to accept a considerably smaller sum than £1,000,000 on any one service.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: I appreciate very much the statement which has just been made by my right hon. Friend, that he will be prepared to limit the amount to be spent on any one service, but I do want him to reconsider the question of limiting the total. I really think that the Committee upstairs and the House have not quite realised what enormous powers are given to the Minister under this Clause. It is not only a question of subsidising or starting new steamships, but my right hon. Friend might start a couple of hundred of schemes of transport all over the country. One of the Ministers said this afternoon that the Board of Agriculture have got under consideration at the moment no fewer than 190 schemes of light railway transport in different parts of the country, and if my right hon. Friend is going to undertake 190 different schemes in the next two years, even if the amount spent is something less than a million pounds in each case, that represents an enormous sum of money which he can spend without any reference to Parliament whatever. T would ask my hon. and learned Friend, the Solicitor-General, to say that there should be some reasonable limit— say, one or two, or even five million, pounds, to what the right hon. Gentleman can expend in the aggregate without coming to Parliament. No other Minister can spend money without coming to Parliament. Every other service has to come to Parliament year after year, and submit detailed proposals of every shilling which they desire to expend. In order to get on' with this transport scheme the House has given my right hon. Friend very large powers of spending money on any one scheme, but by omission it has forgotten to limit his total expenditure in any one year. Under the Clause as it now stands, though lie must not spend more than a million pounds, or even half a million pounds, on any one Service, he could institute any number he liked of transport services all over the country. Inquiries were made as to what is going to be done for Scotland and Wales. Is this to- apply to Ireland also? In addition to the 190 different schemes which the Board of Agriculture are considering, there might be an additional forty or fifty schemes for Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. I do not think that the House realises that it is possible for
the Minister-designate to start any number of schemes. When this matter was before the Committee of Ways and Means on the Money Resolution the right hon. Gentleman, who is a Member for one of the Divisions of Devonshire, asked the Home Secretary could he give information as to the amount of liability involved in this Resolution, and the Home Secretary, who was acting on behalf of the Government, said:
It is a very difficult thing to say definitely, but the probability is, so far as we know, that there will not be in any one year more than three or four comparatively small sums.
That I do not mind, But at present the total sum is unlimited, and I would ask the Solicitor-General to say that there will be some Amendment which will impose at least a limit in the total amount of expenditure, beyond which the right hon. Gentleman cannot go without coming to Parliament.

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir E. Pollock): There is some confusion in regard to this Clause, and the speech of the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Joynson-Hicks) is the foundation for that misgiving, in my mind. I think the position is perfectly plain, if right hon. and hon. Gentlemen will apply themselves to it. The hon. Member for Twickenham has suggested that there may be some 200 schemes of transport initiated by my right hon. Friend, or 100 light railways, or something of that sort. Of course, those are rather violent or extreme suggestions, put by way of test. They are none the less valuable because they are drawn from circumstances which are not likely to arise. They are put by the hon. Member for the purpose of ascertaining whether the Clause is fully understood by the House as a whole. Let me remind the House of the position. It is not£and here the hon. Member for Twickenham has fallen into a slight error£that the new Minister will be independent of the House, or that he will have a right to spend any amount of money without coming to Parliament. He will be in the position of other Ministers. If he desires to spend money, he will have to come to Parliament in order to secure the money. What is given in this Clause is that he is not to exercise the powers conferred upon him without coming to the House unless the amount that he is going to spend is within a certain limit. In other words, we have two things which
are dealt with in this Clause. In the first place, there is a reference to the exercise by the Minister of certain powers given to him under the Bill. The Clause says that if the establishment of a particular service involves a capital expenditure exceeding £1,000,000, then, before he exercises any of the powers, he is to come and lay before the House the scheme which will involve the expenditure of the money in respect of which he is going to exercise his powers. The other part of the Clause provides that when he intends to exercise his power and not to spend any sum which exceeds the limit inserted in this Clause, he can exercise his power without either the powers that he is going to exercise being confirmed or being granted to him by Parliament.
That is really the answer to my hon. Friend. If the scheme is one that would involve a sum of over £l,000,000, then, as the Clause stands, the exercise of the powers will have to be authorised by Order in Council If, on the other hand, the exercise of the powers will not involve an expenditure of £l,000,000, then the powers can be exercised without further confirmation by Parliament. But, of course, the Minister must come and get the money that he seeks to spend, whether it be above or below £1,000,000. In both cases he must, like other Ministers, come to this House in order to get the money.

Mr. RENWICK: If he is compelled to come here for the money, can the Solicitor-General tell us under what Clause of the Bill that is provided?

Sir E. POLLOCK: The hon. Member is an old Member of this House, but I would remind him of what I should have thought must have been familiar to him for years, and that is that no Minister has the power of spending money without its being put in an Estimate and brought before this House. It is quite impossible for any Minister to draw funds without any responsibility at all and to expend them without making a reference to this House. Of course, he will have to come to this House as the source from which he will receive the money that he is to spend. Therefore, I think it is quite plain.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Is it not a fact that under the provisions of this Bill the House has given a statutory authority to the right hon. Gentleman (Sir E. Geddes)
to establish certain services under the limit of £1,000,000, and that he would be quite in order to establish as many services as he likes under £1,000,000 each, and he could call upon the Treasury to give him the money under the statutory authority conferred upon him by this Clause?

Sir E. POLLOCK: I am afraid I do not agree with that view.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: What would happen?

Sir E. POLLOCK: There is confusion about this Clause, but it seems to me quite clear that this Clause does not alter the financial system of the country. Whether it be the Treasury or whether it be the Minister of any "Department who comes for a Vote to Parliament, in every case the money must be found by this House by the usual methods.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Does ray hon. and learned Friend mean that the Minister cannot inaugurate any single service, in spite of his statutory powers, without coming to Parliament with an estimate in order to get the money?

Sir E. POLLOCK: My hon. Friend must quite understand that in the case of a general credit which does not involve the voting of any further money, then, of course, the Minister could exercise and make use of the credit which stands to his name, so to speak, and could use money already voted. It is not necessary, therefore, if he has got money already voted by Parliament, to come specially in order to get further money. But in respect of money which has not been provided by Parliament and which has not been given to him, then, of course, it will be necessary to get that money in the ordinary way by coming to Parliament, or it will be necessary for the Treasury, if control is given to them, to come to Parliament for the purpose of obtaining the sanction of Parliament. May I ask the House to look at the Clause? The exercise of the powers of the Minister is not to be free and unfettered without his coming for further authorisation to Parliament in cases where the expenditure involved will exceed £1,000,000. In other words, he will have to come to secure by Order in Council, which has been laid before the House, the right to exercise powers which, if so large an expenditure of money as a million is not involved, he can exercise without
further authorisation. With regard to the money, it may have been voted, and may, therefore, stand to the credit of the Minister, but if he has no money which is available he will have to come in the ordinary course in order to secure the assent of Parliament to the money being spent. I hope that makes the matter plain. There seems to be considerable confusion as to the purpose of this Clause.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: May I ask your ruling, Mr. Speaker, in this matter as to the circumstances, according to the terms of this Clause, under which it would be necessary for the Minister to come to this House to obtain a Money Resolution in the ordinary way

Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY: May I ask whether the difference of opinion between the learned Solicitor-General and my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Joynson-Hicks) is not substantially the same as the difference between this House in Committee of Supply and Committee of Ways and Means; that is to say, is it not correct, as an interpretation, that this Clause would authorise the Minister to start the work referred to, but unless and until the House in Committee, by Resolution and Estimates, and by the usual procedure, votes the money to enable the Minister to pay, the Minister would not be in a position to pay, although he might at his own peril have started work under the authority he may have in this Bill.

Mr. SPEAKER: I do not see where the Minister is going to get any funds to start these schemes unless he applies to the House. Therefore, these projects must be submitted to the House by way of Estimates. I understand this section to be an additional safeguard for the benefit of the House in the event of any large undertaking being undertaken by the Minister.

Sir F. FLANNERY: Does your ruling mean that this Clause will enable the Minister to start works, quite legally, but it does not enable him to pay for them, and that he can only pay for them by coming to this House and getting a Vote by subsequent Resolution?

Mr. SPEAKER: Where is he going to get the money from? The only place he can get the money from is by a Vote of this House which, when it becomes operative, will be paid out of the Consolidated Fund.

Mr. SCOTT: Does your ruling mean to anticipate as a certainty that the right hon.
Gentleman in charge of these undertakings will never make any profit out of which he will have some money available to start new services?

Sir F. BANBURY: Is it not a fact that it will be necessary to get a Vote in Supply, but that there is nothing whatever to prevent that particular Vote being held over until the last moment and put through under the guillotine? That has happened over and over again, without the House having any opportunity of discussion.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: That would involve, would it not, that my right hon. Friend, who at present has no Vote at all, could not start any of these new services. If he cannot start any of these new services until he comes here and gets a Vote, he could not, therefore, do as my right hon. Friend suggests, bring in the Vote at the end of the Session. That would mean that he could not start any schemes at all.

Mr. SPEAKER: Again I ask the question, where is the money to come from. The money will come out of the Consolidated Fund. How are you going to get the money out of the Consolidated Fund? By a Vote of this House. There is no other way of getting it.

Mr. RENWICK: We give him the power to incur the liability.

Sir D. MACLEAN: We are discussing a matter of very considerable importance, namely, the control of this House over the financial part of this great measure. Let us assume that the Bill is on the Statute Book, and in the usual way next year the Minister comes to the House for money. What I understand he will do will be this. He will submit his Estimates, and we will assume that one of the heads of his Estimates will be "New Works." He may put down £5,000,000 or £10,000,000. If the House grants that to him, by the procedure outlined by Mr. Speaker, that would be the authority for the Treasury to pay the money to the Minister without any control except the control which it has in this Bill as to how he is going to deal with it. The question is, how far this Sub-section gives what we think is adequate control by Parliament over the power given to the Minister. The Clause says, "that no new transport service shall be established by the Minister until an estimate of the capital expenditure has
been approved by the Treasury. So far so good. First of all, you have to get your Estimate approved by the Treasury. The next thing is the provision that where the establishment of any one of these services exceeds £l,000,000 the Minister must come to the House for a separate authority to draw on the fund which has been granted to him in the Estimate.
He has a reservoir there. This is the particular tap he can turn on for these special services. As I understand it, the real difference is this. Shall he come when the aggregate of the proposals under the new services comes to £1,000,000 or shall this House say to him in any case in which we are going to spend more than £1,000,000, "come back to us for your Order in Council under the Clause." That is the real issue. I think we have the three steps quite clear in all our minds. Which is desirable in the interests of efficiency and economy? The right hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) thinks the right thing to do is to come every time.

Sir F. BANBURY: Not every time. If the total expenditure of the year does not exceed £1,000,000 I do not want anything, but if it does he must come.

Sir D. MACLEAN: So far my mind is clear on the point, but I have not yet grasped what the Minister in charge of the Bill meant when he said there were some subsequent Amendments which he was prepared to accept which would go a long way towards meeting that. I do not know whether it will be for the convenience of us all, rather than disputing on this point and pressing it, perhaps, to a division, if we could find out what the Minister really means by meeting the right hon. Baronet and then we might be able to clear matters up.

5.0 P.M.

Sir E. GEDDES: I think the explanation of the financial control of the House which the right hon. Gentleman has given is quite accurate. The Ministry will lay Estimates like any other Department and they will give in appropriate detail the directions in which the total sum is to be expended. Let us say, for the sake of argument, that in the Estimates for any one year there was a sum of £2,000,000 or £3,000,000 for new services. If the total expended on new services in that year came to an excess over the sum which Parliament had sanctioned in the Estimates one would have to come back, but if in the case of any individual new
service the sum did not exceed whatever sum we fixed in this Clause it would be unnecessary to come back again to get Parliament to sanction that particular scheme.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir F. HALL: For each specific service?

Sir E. GEDDES: Yes, or to come back.for that specific service, but in all cases, whether the amount be large or small, the Amendment we have just inserted provides for Estimates being given. The procedure there is exactly what the right hon. Gentleman (Sir D. Maclean) has explained. What I meant by saying I thought we could meet the point in the Amendments which were coming later on was this. We have provided now for Estimates being laid before Parliament which will give the aggregates in the year. We are now discussing, by saying "services" instead of "service," putting in another safeguard, that the aggregate of the new services must not exceed the sum of £1,000,000, whereas Parliament may already in the Estimates have sanctioned £2,000,000 or £3,000,000. I suggest that instead of asking the House to allow the Ministry, within the total sum they have sanctioned in the Parliamentary Estimates for the year, to start a service up to £1,000,000, which is as the Bill left Committee and as the Leader of the House proposed here, we should reduce that sum to £500.000. and then it would stand that whatever sum Parliament sanctioned in the Estimates would not be exceeded in the aggregate. That meets the point subject to the Amendment of the hon. Member (Mr. Joynson-Hicks).

Lord R. CECIL: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain exactly what is meant by a service?

Sir F. BAN BURY: I must admit that this goes some way to meeting my Amendment, but I do not know that it quite goes the whole way. As there seems to have been some little misunderstanding as to the actual sequence of events which will follow if my Amendment is carried, I should like to point out what I believe might occur. It is quite true that a Vote will have to be taken for the expenses of the Department. We have been informed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he estimates that the deficiency in the cost of working the railways will be £50,000,000 or £60,000,000, and that money will have
to be acquired in some way or another. Therefore it is quite possible that we might see on the Estimates a Vote for £50,000,000. It is also probable that we shall be asked to vote £30,000,000 on account. Whether the House approves of it or not does not matter. The unemployment dole was passed without one Member in the ten knowing anything whatever about it, and when the question was raised we were informed, "You voted that in the Vote on Account." I am pretty careful, and have some knowledge of the Rules of Procedure, but I never saw it, and I do not believe one Member in ten knew anything whatever about it. We might, therefore, be asked for a Vote on Account. I can imagine myself standing at the Box, at a quarter to eleven, or at eight o'clock, when most Members want to dine or to go home, and saying, "We must have a Vote on Account, or we shall have the whole services of the country disorganised." Very few Members will have looked at the Estimates, and the right hon. Gentleman would go home smiling to his dinner or his bed. That is not a hypothetical supposition. It is a fact which has occurred over and over again.
The other supposition is that unless the ever-vigilant Leader of the Opposition demands that the Vote should be put down when it is possible to consider it, it might be taken, as many Votes have been. The Vote for the payment of salaries to Members of Parliament I have only been able to get discussed once in the last seven or eight years, and then only by making a great fuss about it. It is always gone into the guillotine. The money cannot be paid unless the House has sanctioned the Vote, and the House sanctions the Vote in the guillotine, Nobody knows it is there, and if he did know he could not speak about it, and unless you vote against the whole Vote you are done. Therefore it is by no manner of means certain that a discussion can take place unless my Amendment is carried. I hope my hon. Friend (Mr. Wilson-Fox) understands it. His Amendment, though it is very good, does no more than this, that the Estimate is to be approved by the Treasury. What will the Treasury do? The probability is that it will only see that the money is the proper sum. It will be guided by two things only. Can they get the money, and will it be properly expended? If it is going to cost £20,000,000, is that a proper sum? The question of policy will not be
gone into, and all that will happen will be that the Treasury will estimate that £10,000,000, or whatever the sum is, is going to be spent in a proper way, and that there is not too much profit for the contractors. So that the Amendment does not go as far as I should like to see it. That is the position in which we are now, and the position will be the same if we agree with the £500,000, though that is a step in the right direction. The hon. Member (Mr. Marriott) says this is safeguarded very much because you cannot acquire land compulsorily without coming to the House. But you may acquire it by agreement. It would not be impossible to suppose the payment of a little extra money to the landowner to avoid coming to the House. Then under this new system of Votes in Supply going upstairs we might have these questions discussed by twenty Members.

Mr. SPEAKER: This is totally irrelevant. The right hon. Baronet should confine himself to his own Amendment.

Sir F. BANBURY: I do not know whether the House is prepared to accept the proposal to reduce the £1,000,000 to £500,000. If that is the wish of the House I withdraw my Amendment. But I should like to hear what the Leader of the Opposition has to say upon this and whether he considers my proposal adequate. If it is not, I must persevere.

Amendment negatived.

Amendments made: In Sub-section (1, i), after the word "service" ["if the establishment of any such service involve"], insert, the words.

"is likely to."

Leave out the words "an original" ["involve an original capital expenditure"], and insert instead thereof the words

"a total." £ [Mr. Renwick.]

Leave out the words "one million" ["capital expenditure exceeding one million pounds"], and insert instead thereof the words

"half a million." £ [Sir E. Geddes.]

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1, i,), the word "of" ["the breaking up of any roads"], to insert the words
or the laying of any light railway upon.
Under the new system of trench railways it will be quite possible to lay such railways along a road without breaking up the road.

Captain S. WILSON: I beg to second the Amendment.

Sir E. GEDDES: The words are really unnecessary. It would be impossible without breaking up a road to lay a track. You cannot put it down on a hard road.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. NEAL: I beg to move, in Sub-Section (1, ii);to leave out the words "concurred in" ["thereby concurred in those directions"], and to insert instead thereof the words
Consented to.

Sir J. HARMOOD-BANNER: I beg to second the Amendment.

Sir E. GEDDES: I think this Amendment is consequential upon an Amendment to Clause 7, which was put down but was not moved. If we adopted this Amendment now, we would have the two-sets of words conflicting. I hope, therefore, the hon. Member will not press it.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Sir E. GEDDES: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (1), to add the words
and (iv) the Minister shall not after two years from the passing of this Act, unless Parliament otherwise determines, commence the construction of any new works, or provide equipment for any transport service not established before that date.
This question was very fully discussed at the last meeting of the House, on a Motion by the right hon. Gentleman who represents the City of London, and the Government undertook then to produce this Amendment, which limits to two years any powers up to now provided in the Bill for the construction of works. I think the House will remember what passed at our last sitting, and I will not go into the matter further.

Amendment agreed to.

Sir F. BANBURY: I beg to move, after the words last inserted, to insert
(v) Not less than thirty days before commencing to establish any transport service under this Section, the Minister shall give to every local authority within whose area it is proposed to execute any works, notice of his proposal and any such local authority shall have the right of being heard against any such proposal. The Minister shall at the request of any such
local authority hold a public inquiry upon the proposal to which objection has been taken and shall make regulations prescribing the manner in which and other necessary particulars in regard to the method of making representations or objections, and of holding such inquiries under this Section.
This Amendment I have been asked to move by the Corporation of the City of London. They are rather afraid that unless they have an opportunity of placing their 'objections before a Minister who has issued an order for laying these tramways, such tramways might be put down in narrow and congested streets of the city, and interfere very much with the traffic, which it is very difficult to carry on at the present time. All that the Amendment proposes is that before the Minister establishes in the area of any local authority any given transport service, he shall give the local authority thirty days' notice, and that they shall then have the right of being heard against any such proposal. It is an extremely moderate Amendment, and I hope the Government will assent to it.

Sir E. POLLOCK: I am sorry not to be able to meet my right hon. Friend, because he knows that if I possibly could I should wish to accept any Amendment of his, which is sure to be carefully thought out and drawn. But this Amendment really involves very considerable delay. Notice is to be given to every local authority within whose area it is proposed to execute any works, and then any such local authority shall have the right of being heard against any such proposal; Then the Minister is to hold a public inquiry upon the proposal to which objection has been taken, and regulations are to be made to carry it out. That really means that where you are dealing with transport services—

Sir F. BANBURY: Of course, "any works" does not mean ordinary works. It only means works connected with transport services.

Sir E. POLLOCK: Quite so, but a transport service means this, that you must be traversing the area in which there are several if not a great number of local authorities, and every one of these, however important it may be 'to get from one town to another, would have the right of being heard after notice given, and inquiries would have to be held in all those areas. That is a very serious proposition. Perhaps my right hon. Friend will bear
this in mind: In no case can a new service be started without consultation with the Advisory Committee, and therefore any new service or scheme is not started by the Minister without very careful consideration being given to it. I cannot help feeling that the House will consider that this proposal to create the opportunity for inquiries and delay goes beyond even what the right hon. Gentleman intended his Amendment to provide.

Sir F. BANBURY: If I were to amend the Amendment by putting in "tramway" instead of "transport" it would minimise the delay and achieve the object I have in view.

Sir E. POLLOCK: My right hon. Friend is so accommodating and obliging that one is tempted to accept his Amendment, but I am afraid the answer I gave was the answer I must adhere to, namely, that sufficient and adequate safeguard is given by consultation with the Advisory Committee, and that it is really unnecessary to hold this sort of inquiry, whether in case of a mere tramway or the larger case of a transport service. I am afraid we are unable to accept the Amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. L. SCOTT: I beg to move, after the words last inserted to insert the words
(v) It shall be the duty of the Minister in respect of any service established and worked by him under this Section to provide all such due and reasonable facilities for the receiving, and forwarding, and delivery of traffic as under the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts a, railway or canal company is bound to provide; and for the purpose of enforcing this duty the Railway and Canal Commission shall have power to award damages and determine all other questions relating to such facilities.
This Amendment is of considerable importance. The object of it is to put upon the Minister, when he undertakes the working of the service under this section, the same sort of obligations that a railway or canal company is under to-day in respect of the railway or canal service. As the Bill stands I can see no Clause imposing on the Minister, when he works a service in the interest of the public, the statutory duty of working that service properly, and no obligation to pay damages to the public, commercial or private, or other transport undertakings wanting through facilities, for a breach of any duty. Although we know that the object of this Bill is to co-ordinate our transport services, and make them more efficient, and though we all have the most
profound and humble belief in the Minister-designate of Ways and Communications, it would be more satisfactory for this House, and certainly to the public outside, to know that the Minister-designate was under a statutory duty and an obligation to pay damages. In one shape or another I think this House ought to insist on it. We cannot let this Bill leave this House giving the Minister power to control the transport services by land or by water without his having any statutory obligation to work them properly. At the beginning of the Clause it says it shall be lawful for the Minister to establish and work transport services by land or water, to construct works, and do all such things as may be necessary, but there is nothing in the Section imposing the duty. Further, if you look at Clause 15 of the Bill, you will see that although the provision of the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts or the Act of 1888 are applied for certain purposes, they are only purposes of procedure, and apply only if by some other Clause in the Bill the determination of questions involved should have been referred to the Commission. In other words, unless there is another Clause saying that the Commission shall have jurisdiction to decide some particular dispute, the procedure provided by Clause 15 is not applicable. There is no provision in the Bill referring to the Railway and Canal Commission such a question as that to which my Amendment is relevant£the question as to what remedy may be available to a trader, to a member of the public, or to another transport service, where the -Minister working the service started under Clause 8 fails to do so properly. That will not do. I have drafted an Amendment with the idea of imposing on the Minister in regard to any service that he starts under Clause 8 the same sort of obligations as arc imposed by law at present upon a railway and canal company in respect of traffic facilities. It maybe that my Amendment ought to have gone further, and that I ought to have suggested to the House that we should impose on the Minister all the obligations of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, or it may be, on the other hand, that the Government would prefer an Amendment In that form. I am quite content to take it in that form if they do. My Amendment was drafted so as to raise the definite point in the most concrete shape I could.
I put this challenge forward to the Minister-designate: Can he point to any Clause under which he would be under any pecuniary liability at all for breach of his duties in carrying on a service that he had started under Clause 8? I think he ought to be. In regard to railway companies, I need not remind the House that it includes accommodation for traffic sidings, stations for trade and passengers, supplies of wagons, facilities for through traffic, and other things. All these things are necessary, and it ought to be laid down in the Bill, first, that it is the duty of the Minister to do it, and, second, that the public shall have a remedy if he does not. It is very possible, of course, that no such remedy would ever be required, and let us assume that, if the right hon. Gentleman himself had his eye on these services continuously in all detail, and if he remained there throughout the period of two years, we should never want any remedy, because everything would be perfect, but we must face the contingency of his orders not being carried out, of the staff making mistakes, or that other contingency almost too dreadful to contemplate, of his not remaining there for the two years; and for these reasons I submit that something ought to be done. Under this Bill there is not very much provision in favour of the ordinary trader. [An Hon. Member: "No provision!"] I put it gently when I say very little provision to protect the consumer— the man who is going to use the transport services of the country—the general public —and I submit that something ought to be done to do so.

Mr. STEVENS: I beg to second the Amendment. The whole system of this country desires an appeal, and it is not only fair, but necessary, chat such provisions should apply to the Ministry of Ways and Communications as those which apply to any statutory undertaking. All that is asked here is that the Minister, if he provides a service, should provide all such due and reasonable facilities for the receiving and forwarding and delivering of traffic as under the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts a railway or canal company is bound to provide, and having provided those that they should be maintained subject to an appeal to the Railway and Canal Commission.

Sir E. POLLOCK: Of course, I appreciate the object with which this Amendment has been moved, and it does not
take many words on the part of the hon. and learned Member who moved it to make his point clear to me, but at the same time I think the object which has caused him to move the Amendment is that foe is afraid that the ordinary trader will not receive sufficient consideration by the Minister, of whom he speaks very reassuringly, but underlying that I seemed to think that he had some doubts as to the way in which the Minister would administer this Bill, and he spoke rather in favour of the need of some safeguards for the consumer. I have given considerable attention to all he has said, and I hope the House will give me similar attention if I make some observations on the Bill. First of all, let it be observed that Clause 8, which is the Clause under which the Minister is empowered to start these services and facilities, does not come into play unless and until an offer has been made to the railway or other established company to provide these services which the Minister is anxious to establish. The House will see that the second proviso to that Clause is as follows:
(ii) where it appears to the Minister that the establishment of any such service could properly be undertaken by the owners of any existing undertaking, the Minister shall not himself establish the service without first giving to such owners an opportunity of establishing the service, and where such an opportunity is given to the owner of an undertaking of which possession has been retained or taken under Section three of this Act and those owners prefer that the establishment of the service should be undertaken by themselves rather than by the Minister, they may require the Minister to give then directions under that Section to that effect, but shall not be deemed to have thereby concurred in those directions.
In other words, there is an opportunity to existing organisations to carry out the service which the Minister thinks is necessary for the purpose of the transport of the country. If there is a total failure to provide a service the Minister enters the arena for the purpose of giving facilities which did not exist before. which either have been withheld or which the body who could grant the facilities are unwilling to grant, and therefore the House may take it that in all cases the Minister who is establishing these services is acting, not by way of a deterrent and to prevent other organisations providing the facilities, but in order to supplement existing facilities and to make good what has been deficient before.

Sir E. CARSON: May I ask, if that second Sub-section is brought into play
and the owners themselves establish that service, would not they be liable to the provisions of the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts?

Sir E. POLLOCK: That is what I am wanting to indicate. It is quite clear that they would, and I was going to add that. Therefore, in ordinary course the railway companies would be urged to provide these facilities and to undertake the due service which was lacking and which the Minister desired to establish. If it was established and undertaken by the railway company, then all the ordinary law which applies to a railway company would apply to them, and the consumer would have the same safeguards as he does at present. I am, therefore, putting forward the case of when these powers will be necessary and where same default has been made and where, therefore, the Minister can be rightly said to be providing facilities which were deficient before, and it is in that spirit in which he will undertake the task of providing the service. My hon. and learned Friend said that in no case was there any provision at all in the Act to safeguard the rights of the consumer. I am not quite sure that he was right in that, and I do not think he will think he was right if he will turn to paragraph (e) of Sub-clause (1) of Clause 3, where he will find that the right, and the very important right, which is given to the trader under the existing law to prevent undue preference under the conditions of the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts is specially safeguarded.

Lord R. CECIL: That does not apply, does it, to services established by the Minister, but only to the services retained or taken possession of—not new services?

Sir E. POLLOCK: I do not think it does. I am pointing out what the existing condition of things is, and I am very anxious to make my point plain. At the present time the consumer is not left unprotected. He is given this provision, which I think my hon. and learned Friend had overlooked, that he still has his rights in respect of a claim which he can make of any undue preference.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: May I ask whether he realises that the suggestion, he has last made relates to undue preference and that the Amendment we are now discussing is on an entirely different question, that of reasonable facilities, which his colleague, in his absence, refused to-put in that Clause?

Sir E.POLLOCK: I am much obliged to my hon. Friend, because I do know the difference between the case of a reasonable facility and a case of undue preference, and I hope I was not confusing those. I was not suggesting that when I was speaking of undue preference I was covering all the safeguards given under the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts. If the House has been good enough to follow me, I have indicated to them that at the present time the trader is not left unprotected, that the services which are dealt with under Clause 8 are services which the Minister intends to provide in order to make up deficiencies, not new services which he intends to start where they are wholly unnecessary, but cases in which he is endeavouring to secure that they shall be provided by existing organisations and where they have failed. It is the Minister who is acting in that way that you are asking to put in the safeguards which the hon. Member invited the House to introduce into the Statute. There is another difficulty about doing that. In respect of these services, in Clause 3, Sub-clause (1), paragraph (c), sub-paragraph (iii.), there is power taken
as to the working or discontinuance of the working of the undertaking or any part thereof, including directions as to keeping open or closing of any stations.
In other words, the Minister has got the right to close as well as to open, to shut down as well as to create, to withdraw as well as to provide. What is the difference between the Minister and an ordinary railway company? A monopoly is given in the case of a railway, and they are given rights to serve a particular area; they are given statutory powers of imposing their charges, and they hold the field against other companies, and in consequence of that the legislation of Parliament in the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts provides that holding that monopoly they shall necessarily provide all reasonable facilities. They are not given rights independent of duties which are imposed upon them. Does that apply to any service which is provided by the Minister? I suggest it is not so, and for this reason. I do not want to go over the same ground again, but I think I have made it plain that the services which will be started by the Minister are not in that sense by way of monopoly granted to a statutory body, not by way of giving facilities to somebody which are not to be enjoyed in competition with others, but are facilities which are initiated by the
Minister because of the shortcomings existing in that particular area in the matter of transport, and for the purpose of supplementing what has hitherto not been made good. At the same time, as I pointed out, in that Sub-section (3) he has the power to withdraw if it becomes unnecessary, and to discontinue if it is found that the service does not serve any useful purpose. Under those circumstances, so far from undertaking a monopoly, he is undertaking a public duty, which is to continue so long as it is necessary, but no longer. Under the circumstances, and having regard to the nature of the service the Minister provides, I venture to say it is a confusion of thought to suppose that the same sort of duties should be imposed upon the Minister which are imposed upon a railway under the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts, and for those reasons I invite the House to refuse to accept the Amendment.

Sir E. CARSON: I find some difficulty in following the learned Solicitor-General as to why he rejects this Amendment. It seems to me to be a case that can be put very simply. At the present moment, if a railway company does not do its duty towards the public as regards the duties under the Railway Act, including preference and various kinds of facilities, any member of the community who is affected can go before the Railway Commission and can compel the company to give facilities mentioned in the Act. All that this Amendment does is to say that when the Minister of Ways and Communications stands in the same position as a company, if he neglects the same facilities and the same obligations that are put upon a railway company, he shall be in the same position as a railway company and may be compelled to carry them out. That is a simple thing to ask. What is the answer? The first answer is that before the Minister undertakes the establishing of these new works, he may offer certain people, whom we will call the owners, the opportunity of establishing the same. I fail to see why, if the owners accept his request to start these works themselves, they should be under the Railway Act, but if the Minister undertakes them he is not liable under the Railway Act. What is the difference in the position? The same undertaking, the same necessity to the public, but because it is a Minister who is doing it, on the refusal of the owners, he is not to be liable to the jurisdiction of the Railway Commission. The only reason
that could be given, if it could be given as a fact, for the difference, would be that our experience is that every undertaking a Government carries out is so much better done than anything that is done by any individual enterprise, and that therefore the same obligations ought not to be put upon a Minister. But that is not the whole of it. If the Minister takes over an existing railway, then he is subject to the Railway Act, but if he starts a new railway he is not subject to the Railway Act. What on earth is the difference between the two cases? Is he a better man in the one case than he is in the other? He is the same Minister, subject, unfortunately, to the same infirmities, but just because it is a new undertaking, instead of an undertaking he takes over, he is not to be subject to the Act. That seems to be farcical. The learned Solicitor-General says that under Clause 3, when he is taking over an undertaking, he is to give directions
as to the working or discontinuance of the working of the undertaking or any part thereof, including directions as to keeping open or closing of any stations.
He says that that shows he has a wider power, and is there not for a monopoly but in the general public interest. But Clause 3 is the very one that puts him under the Railway Act, and even under Sub-clause 3 his railway comes under the Railway Act as regards the rights of the public to insist upon facilities. The truth of the matter is, that whether the railway is a new railway, or a railway taken over, or a new railway made under Clause 8 at the request of the Minister by the owners, it is still a railway for the public convenience, and in all the three cases there ought to be the same facilities as there are in two, mainly, that if the public has any cause of complaint they ought to be able to go and insist upon their rights before the Railway Commissioners. That is the simple point in this case, and, with great deference to the learned Solicitor-General. so far as his argument proves it is not necessary, he has shown that in the two cases to which he has referred, and tried to make an argument out of them, the Bill does not relieve the Minister from the same obligations the company has had, and I cannot see why in the third case the same rule should not apply.

Sir D. MACLEAN: I hope the Minister in charge of this Bill will reconsider the position taken up with regard to the proposed Amendment. I will not for one moment attempt any addition to what my
right hon. and learned Friend said, because those of us who are accustomed to hear legal arguments, I think, will agree that my right hon. and learned Friend gave a smashing answer—if my hon. and learned Friend will forgive me—to his case. I do not see what the answer is to the case put by the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir E. Carson). I would only add one point, and it is this: We are really not here to buttress privileges; it is a matter of the interest to the public as to whether the public who are going to use these new services shall be in a position which is similar to, and absolutely identical with, their position with regard to the Post Office to-day. We all know that any redress which the Post Office gives to us they give as a grace but not a right. They say it is a gratuity, which is totally different, of course, from the service rendered to the public by these corporations, from whom we get redress as a right. All that this Amendment seeks, I understand, is that in these new services set up under this Clause the public shall be placed in a somewhat similar position to that in which they are placed by this Bill where the Minister takes over an existing service. That is all. My right hon. and learned Friend demonstrated that to my complete satisfaction. In Clause 3, Sub-section (1, e), it says:
In the case of any undertaking of which possession is retained or taken by the Minister as aforesaid."£
Then it goes on about rates, fares, tolls, dues, and other charges:
but without prejudice to claims in respect of undue preference under the provisions of the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts.
You are dealing here in Clause 8 with power to establish transport services, and we know that that means new services. There is nothing in this Clause which imports, so far as I can see, any part of the protection given under Clause 3, and all that this Amendment seeks to do is to place this new service, in the interests of the public, in something like the same position as the old services taken over by the Minister.

Sir F. FLANNERY: The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has furnished the House with an analogy which is exceedingly convenient, and, if I may say so, with great respect, is entirely appropriate. He has referred to the Post Office. Supposing the Postmaster-General were about to establish a new service, we will say a postal delivery in
the Highlands. Would the right hon. Gentleman stand up in this House and advocate that the Postmaster-General should be compelled to give the same facilities for a postal service newly established in the Highlands as he should give to existing postal services elsewhere? Of course he would not.

Sir D. MACLEAN: Surely that is a totally different case.

Sir F. FLANNERY: I think my right hon. Friend might, perhaps, permit me to complete my argument. Here is the analogy. Here you have an Amendment which desires that the Minister of Ways and Communications shall be compelled to give the same facilities to the public in the case of new services which he may establish as he is compelled to give in the case of existing services. That was the gravamen of the argument of my right hon. and learned Friend opposite, who said, "Why on earth should you allow the Minister to establish a new service and not put him under the same compulsion as regards public convenience that he is under in the case of an old service?" The reason is this, and I think my right hon. and learned Friend will recognise it. Just as the Postmaster-General might start experimenting with a new service for the public convenience, so might the Minister of Ways and Communications be compelled, in the general spirit of his office, to start new services of an experimental character within the two years to which he is limited, and never let the House forget — because it it the test of all these suggestions pro and con — that this period is limited to two years, and within that two years the conception of the improvements must arise, the planning, the execution, the experiment as regards its success, and so if the Minister of Ways and Communications is to be compelled, as he would be by the acceptance of this Amendment, to give exactly the same facility to a new experimental service which he is trying, in the same spirit as the Postmaster-General tries a new service, his hands would be tied, he would be hampered, and prevented from making the experiment and the improvements which are the very object of this Bill. Therefore, I venture to think the argument of my right hon. Friend will not hold, and I for one certainly will not be prepared to support the Amendment.

6.0 P.M.

Sir E. POLLOCK: With the great deference which I should wish to pay to the remarks and reasoning of my right hon. and learned Friend below the Gangway, I must still point out that I think it would be unwise to accept the proposed Amendment. If the Minister starts any service at all, he does not do it for any profit. There are no shareholders. He will only be doing it in the interests of the country. The moneys that he receives will go to the credit of the accounts of the country. I would also point out that ho will not only be undertaking such a service£and here I would observe that with the stroke of a. great advocate my right hon. and learned Friend rather left this point£in a lesser respect the Minister would only be acting in order to make good and to fill up deficiencies. He will, therefore, be giving, not rights which have been taken from any other member of the public, but he will be conferring a benefit upon persons who hitherto have not been able to get the full advantage of transport. He will come in in respect to that which hitherto has not been undertaken, and under the Section to which I have, but will not further,, refer, and which has been actually refused by the organisation which is in existence. That any service started by the State is to be such an ample scheme that the Minister is to be treated as one who, if he does engage in it, is to take over all the burdens which belong to a railway organisation, is a matter for this House to-say. If in the affirmative, the answer to that might be that, "If you put such a burden upon me, it will be so costly that I could not recommend the House to allow me to start the service. If I have to grant all the facilities and be under the operation of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, very well, I will not try to fill the deficiency. I will leave the matter as it stands." That is the alternative.
One understands the case of the consumer, the trader, and so on, but the trader must remember if he is granted any facilities at all by the Minister he is being granted something he did not enjoy before, and receiving a benefit which be will certainly not receive if this very serious burden is imposed upon the Minister by Vote this afternoon. This Amendment would cover facilities granted in respect of services undertaken by the Minister for Roads, to which at the present moment the Railways and Canal Traffic Act does not apply.

Mr. SCOTT: Because there is no monopoly of the roads at present.

Sir E. POLLOCK: That is an answer, if I may say so, which I should expect from a speaker at the street corner. If there is no monopoly of the roads the hon. and learned Gentleman knows quite well that the services that will be started, and undertaken, will really be services that would be to the advantage of persons who wish to have transit from one big town to another. It would be a mistake if the House imposed upon the Minister the same duties that are imposed upon railways or other organisations, and I am afraid I must say that I am unable to accept the Amendment. Let me add one word. It has been pointed out that it may be the case that the passage I referred to about undue preference in Clause (3)
Sub-section (1), paragraph (e). Without prejudice to claims in respect of undue preference under the provisions of the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts 
would not apply to these new services. If that be so, after we have had the opportunity of considering it, I am quite ready to undertake that these particular words about undue preference should be made applicable to these services. I myself am not quite certain—being somewhat unfamiliar with the drafting of the Bill—whether it is necessary to put them in. If it be so I am quite ready to introduce "undue preference" in respect of the new services. Beyond that I cannot go. I hope, in the interests of providing good service, and giving the Minister the opportunity of making good what is deficient, the House will not impose upon him what I conceive would be an unreasonable burden.

Lord R. CECIL: I rather hope the Government will give a little more consideration to this point. It is one of very considerable importance. The Government take power under this Clause, within two years, as I understand it, to establish any new service that they may think fit. But the working of that service does not terminate at the end of two years; it goes on. Therefore the Government may under this Clause establish in perpetuity any service they may think fit. It is now argued that these services should not be subjected to the ordinary duties to which they would be subject If they were established by private enterprise.

Sir F. FLANNERY: If they had been established earlier.

Lord R. CECIL: Or if established under this Bill. If the Government go to a private owner and say, "You establish it," they will be subject to every one of these provisions. I think my hon. Friend opposite has not quite followed the provisions of the Bill.

Sir F. FLANNERY: Oh, yes! I quite agree.

Lord R. CECIL: Then I do not quite follow the point.

Sir F. FLANNERY: In addition to the point which the Noble Lord has stated, there is the provision: "new enterprises established within two years."

Lord R. CECIL: I do not follow my hon. Friend. But here we arrive at a point of great importance which involves just what I am afraid of in regard to schemes of nationalisation, which, while promising to give greater facilities and greater freedom to the workmen, always end by less freedom and greater control on the part of those responsible for the management. It is that of which I am afraid in this case too. I am quite sure my right hon. Friend wishes to do what is right in these matters. But look at the attitude of his colleagues and himself. Look at the attitude they instinctively assume in respect to imposing public duties on the Government. "The Government must not be controlled in any way! They must be allowed to do what they think right! It is not fair to in any way control them ! They represent the community as a whole!" That is so. But all this ends in bureaucracy. I confess that I hope my right hon. Friend will really reconsider this matter very seriously. There is another point of some importance which I wish to put to the House. Under these schemes the Government may go to an owner and say, "You carry out this new service." Just consider what position the owner is going to be in if he carries out the new service. He will be subject to the ordinary law, to the ordinary powers of the Railway and Canal Commission and Traffic Act, and so on. More than that. I am not quite sure whether I am right, but so far as I can see he will have to go through the ordinary procedure, promote a private Bill—and I can find nothing in this Bill which gives him any power of carrying out the work except in the way in which he can carry it out at present. If that be so, the position is really farcical. You are going
to carry out these services in order to complete your particular undertaking. You will say to him, "Do this, which will be of great advantage to me; will put money into my pocket." He will probably reply, "I shall not do it at all; you do it. You would not be subject to any of the laws or Regulations which the wisdom of Parliament has enacted for the benefit of the consumer, and others concerned." The Government will have to do it at the expense of the taxpayer, who will get a secondary advantage. This seems to me to be a serious matter when you come to consider how, according to my hon. and learned Friend, this Bill is to be used, namely, that this Clause is for the purpose of linking up and supplying deficiencies. Suppose you have a system at the present time in the hands of a private owner, subject to the rules relating to undue preference, reasonable facilities, and the rest of it. The object is to put an end to that system by the Government, which is not subject to all these things. How are you going to carry out the laws in respect to it? How are you going to do it? Is it not certain that the owner will turn round and say, "I cannot do this; the proper way to do this is by the Government. You are asking me to take over all sorts of burdensome obligations which belong to the Government." I should imagine it would throw the whole policy of the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts into confusion. I cannot see except for the amour propre of the Government and the instinctive dislike of bureaucracy to control, why they should not accept the ordinary obligations which apply to other undertakings ! Surely that is a fair and a reasonable thing to do. I do hope my right hon. Friend will again consider the matter, and, having in view the great anxiety some of us feel in reference to these questions of Government control, will meet us on this point.

Major HAYWARD: If I have understood the position correctly, it is really worse than that defined so clearly by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, because he told us that under Clause 3 the railways taken over by the Minister under this Clause were subject to the Railway and Canal Traffic Act. I put it with trepidation that I do not think that is quite an accurate statement of the case, because, as I read the Clause, they are only subject to the Railway and Canal Traffic Act so far as the question of undue preference is con-
cerned, not otherwise. What would be the position? The right hon. Gentleman the Minister-designate will have very great powers over these railways taken over under Clause 3. If the railways are acting under the control and direction of the right hon. Gentleman, surely the railway company would be enabled to set that up as a defence to any claim which was made under the Railway and Canal Traffic Act! If anyone suffering a grievance claims that they had not proper facilities it would be a perfectly good defence for the railway company to say that they were acting under the direction of the Minister. I think the case put by the right hon. Gentleman opposite is absolutely unanswerable, that if these railways are to be taken over surely the public on that account should not be deprived of remedies which they already have.

Colonel GRETTON: I want to urge the Government to reconsider this question. The Minister-designate has assured us of the good intentions of the Government, but Ministers are here to-day and gone to-morrow. If these railways or transport facilities are to be set up for the use of the public, and it is decided that they are wanted, then the public right ought to be established now. I think it will lead to confusion having a set of transport facilities under the control of the existing Acts because it would be impossible to administer the law or enforce, the rights of the subject in regard to these matters. There is no reason why public rights or facilities should not be established. The public want facilities, and they ought to be given by this Act, and therefore I hope the Government will reconsider their position.

Mr. ROYCE: Perhaps some hon. Members in speaking to this Amendment have not taken into consideration what class of undertakings the Minister-designate will have to construct. I noticed this afternoon a question with regard to experimental railways. Would those regulations applying to the open lines of this country apply to a farm-feeding railway, which I understand is absolutely necessary and part of the plan of the Government at the present time? Would the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts apply to such a line? I take it that a great many of the lines which will be constructed by the Minister-designate have especial reference to agriculture and an entirely different system and rules to guide those
undertakings will have to be formed. It would be folly to pass this proposal. There will be some confusion as to whether it applies to the ordinary open main lines or subsidiary lines.

Lord R. CECIL: It does.

Mr. ROYCE: It would be entirely detrimental and so far as I understand the subject of rural farm lines it would defeat the object.

Mr. NEAL: A great weight of artillery, has been brought to bear on this question. I would suggest that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Belfast stated his proposition in. terms which will hardly bear investigation. He said that when the Minister stands in the same position as the railway companies he must accept the same obligations. The whole point is that the Minister does not stand in the came position as the railway companies, but he comes forward to make good the deficiencies of the railway companies, and before he takes that obligation upon himself he has first to give the railway company the opportunity of undertaking that piece of transport work. Upon what terms can the railway company decline it? Surely the reason would be that it was not likely to be a profitable or, in their opinion, a feasible adjunct to their undertaking, and having taken up that view it would be considered from the point of view of the finance of their undertakings.
The whole object of this Bill is that the Minister may take a broader national view than the mere local and parochial financial view of the particular under-taking, and the Minister may say that although this particular piece of transport service in itself may not be what one would undertake as a commercial proposition, yet for the good of that particular district, which it will open and help to take its part in the national scheme, this is something which we will do. The Minister does not stand in the same position as the railway companies in other respects. This is an attempt to attach the provisions of the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts to undertakings that may neither be railways nor canals. As the Solicitor-General pointed out, this is an attempt to attach statutory obligations to undertakings to which the Statutes do not attach in the first instance. I think a little consideration would show how unsound that would be. Suppose the Minister under this Section establishes transport by road, then if the Amendment is carried immediately there
would be upon him in respect of that road transport obligations borrowed from another Statute which are totally irrelevant for the purpose.

Lord R. CECIL: I agree, if the hon. Member is right, there is a great deal of force in his argument, but I have read it differently, I have read it to mean that it only compels the Minister to provide all such due and reasonable facilities as a railway company is bound to provide. Therefore it would not apply except in cases in which it would apply to railway companies. If it does not mean that it should be altered. We do not want to apply an Act made for a railway to something which is not a railway at all.

Mr. SCOTT: That is the intention of the Amendment, and I believe the wording of it carries out that idea.

Mr. NEAL: I think there would be a very convenient opportunity if this Amendment were included for a little discussion in. the Law Courts, and nobody can foresee what the ultimate result of litigation might be. Notwithstanding that, I suggest that the view I am putting forward is the correct meaning of this Amendment. Under the Section which it is proposed to amend the Minister may establish any form of transport service. Having done that, the Amendment under discussion says:
In respect of any service established and worked by him under this Section to provide all such due and reasonable facilities for the receiving, and forwarding, and delivery of traffic as under the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts a railway or canal company is bound to provide.
Suppose he establishes a road service?

Lord R. CECIL: That is not what I understood. If that is the real meaning it ought to be modified and should not go so far, and I am sure the Government draftsman could easily do that. It should administer railway companies under the same conditions.

Mr. NEAL: It Is impossible to deal with more than one thing at a time, and I suggest that the reading of his Amendment in the terms on the Paper establishes the proposition I am endeavouring to propose, namely, that there will be attached to every service, whether road or air service or any other form, a like responsibility as is attached to all the railway and canal traffic and to a railway or canal undertaking. I am sure that is not the inten-
tion of the Mover of the Amendment, nor is it the intention of those who support it. I am dealing for a moment with what is a very attractive argument used by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Belfast. When he was speaking I could not help thinking of a distinguished member of the profession, who, having put forward a very attractive argument, unsound as it was attractive, the learned judge said, "Is it really your best, "and he replied," No, my Lord, but it is most superficially attractive." The right hon. and learned Gentleman ignored altogether the position taken up by the Solicitor-General of the actual difference in kind between the Minister establishing a national service for national purposes, and a railway company or a canal company establishing a quasi-national service for monopolistic purposes.
No one up to the present has dealt with what I think is the most serious argument used by the Solicitor-General, and it is that when the Minister is considering "Aye" or "No" and "Shall I advise the Government with the consent of the House to embark upon this particular piece of work which I think will be good," he would be definitely influenced and might be influenced to the extent of determining in the negative by the fact that he would be rendering himself liable to very serious obligations, and he might say, "It is not worth while." The result might be to prevent the very thing which we should succeed in establishing. The Noble Lord pointed out what I think is the one point calling for the very serious consideration of the Government when he pointed out that these services may be permanent services, and they may become in the course of time a substantial part of the existing service, and a difficulty might arise in carrying out the law as it affects the existing undertakings by reason of giving them an opportunity of making the answer, "We cannot give the through-traffic or these facilities because there is in the midst of our undertakings a block by means of the Government ownership of a particular piece." I think this matter might be rectified by some Amendment, or possibly it might be dealt with in this way. It is perfectly understood by every Member of the House that at the end of two years the Government have to come here with their permanent policy. It may be a policy of
nationalisation or it may not, but whatever their policy is, if they are going then to carry on permanently undertakings which have been made under those powers, surely that would be the correct time at which to attach to those services the necessary permanent obligations. I do not think that any speaker who has taken part in. the Debate has dealt with the point raised by the learned Solicitor-General that these services may be temporary and that the effect might be that, if a service were established of a temporary character, some person might come along with onerous obligations which the Government were not prepared to carry out, and it might mean the abandonment of the service, to the great loss of the public in money and facilities. I respectfully suggest that when you are asking for powers to give additional facilities it is not germane to say that to the added facility you shall attach all the obligations which apply to the-original facility.

An HON. MEMBER: Why not?

Mr. NEAL: Because it is an addition.

Lord R. CECIL: There is nothing about an addition in the Clause.

Mr. NEAL: Surely these are new services, and, being new services, they must be additional to existing services, and to that extent the public gain.

Lord R. CECIL: So they do, by a new-railway.

Mr. NEAL: Yes, but the railway company has declined to accept the obligation£that is part of the position£and the railway company having declined the obligation, and nobody having applied for the power, the Government say, "Give us the powers to do this, and by so much we are adding to the facilities. But the Amendment says," You shall not add to the facilities at all unless you are prepared to add to the facilities to the full extent which you would be bound to if you were an existing undertaking." I hope that in the public interest no such handicap will be put upon the Government.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Without going into legal technicalities, may I say that I think the real reason is that in the case of a monopoly there must be an appeal. The reason why under the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts an appeal was allowed to the Railway and Canal Commission was because the railway was a monopoly,
and the traders could not be left to the tender mercies of any monopoly. My right hon. Friend the Minister-designate, in any new service, must himself become a monopoly. Under whatever services he establishes in connection with a railway, he is equally a monopoly with the railway, and therefore the right of appeal should apply against him as against the original railway monopoly.

Mr. SCOTT: Some misconception seems to have arisen out of the use of the word "facilities" in the Amendment. The word "facilities," of course, has a technical meaning and a popular meaning, and, although it is quite true to say that the main object of this Bill is to increase the transport facilities of the country, the word "facilities" in this Amendment is not used in that sense. The object is that where a Minister, under the powers of Clause 8, himself starts a new service, and himself as a Government Department works that service as if he were a board of directors of a railway or a canal company—which the Clause authorises him to do—he should be under the same sort of liability to the general public as any other railway or canal company. That is the whole point.

Earl WINTERTON: I should like to ask whether this would apply to a Decauville railway for agricultural purposes?

Mr. SCOTT: Yes, I think that as drafted it would; but I am perfectly willing to consider an Amendment and deal with that question on its merits. That would be a much more convenient course, because if there is consent to the general principle of the Amendment, but a desire to limit it by the exclusion, for instance, of Decauville railways, that question could be discussed on an Amendment to my Amendment. But even if a light railway were included, the obligation to give traffic facilities would be an obligation to give facilities appropriate to that kind of railway—not the same facilities on a light agricultural railway which would be given on the London and North Western Railway's main line. That is where a little confusion, I think, has arisen in the House. This Amendment does not propose in any sense to say that it shall be the duty of the Minister, in the case of an undertaking which he starts for a special purpose, to give on that undertaking facilities which
are necessary on some long established and big undertakings used for different purposes. It means that the facilities, whatever they are, that are to be given on the new undertaking, shall be facilities in respect of which he is under a duty; so that, for instance, the agricultural community—and that is largely the kind of case that I have in mind, namely, a special section of the community wanting facilities, and the Minister recommending that the facilities are wanted and starting a new undertaking shall be able to enforce their rights under that undertaking. I have had enough of D.O.R.A. We do not want the bureaucratic attitude of allowing things as of grace. It is intolerable that, where an industrial undertaking is being run by a Government Department, those for whom the undertaking is set up should not have a remedy as of right. Unless this Amendment is accepted, that wrong principle is going to be permanently set up in this Bill. In every one of these new services the Minister will be able to say: "I know I have not given you what I told you I was going to; I know I am not doing what I set out to do; I know I am not running the trains which my timetables say; I know I am not supplying the wagons which I have undertaken to supply, and you have no rights whatever in respect of it, and no redress. If I think fit I will give you something. If I don't I won't. "That is an intolerable position, and I consider that it is a matter of vital importance, where industrial undertakings are run by a national administration under State management—and we have to contemplate that possibility that in this, the very first experiment made by the Government in nationalisation, we ought to lay down the principle at the outset that we will not have it unless they are under a legal obligation to serve the community like any private undertaking. I venture to suggest that the danger under this Clause is very great. As the Amendment is framed I only seek to put upon the Minister the sort of obligation that a railway or canal company incurs in regard to a railway or canal. But do not let us forget that under this Bill as it stands the Minister can start a shipping service, he can start a service of motors on roads for short-distance traffic, and he is under no liability whatever in regard to those under Clause 8. I venture, therefore, to ask the House to accept this Amendment as it
stands. If any particular service ought, so to speak, to be excepted from the scope of the Amendment, that could be done by and Amendment to this Amendment.

Question put,

"That those words be there inserted in the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 91; Noes, 208.

Division No. 59.]
AYES.
[6.41 p.m.


Adair, Rear-Admiral
Croft, Brig,-General Henry Page
Palmer, Brig.-Gen. G. (Westbury)


Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte
Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)
Pearce, Sir William


Ainsworth, Captain C.
Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.)
Perkins, Waiter Frank


Allen, Col. William James
Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington)
Perring, William George


Armitage, Robert
Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
Prescott, Major W. H.


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Galbraith, Samuel
Raeburn, Sir William


Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir F. G.
Greame, Major P. Lloyd
Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel


Banner, Sir J. S. Harmood-
Gretton, Colonel John
Remer, J. B.


Bell, Lieut.-Col. W. C. H. (Devizes)
Gritten, W. G. Howard
Renwick, G.


Benn, Sir Arthur S. (Plymouth)
Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir Fred (Dulwich)
Royden, Sir Thomas


Benn, Com. Ian Hamilton (G'nwich)
Hancock, John George
Samuel, A. M. (Farnham, Surrey)


Blair, Major Reginald
Hay ward, Major Evan
Samuel, S. (Wandsworth, Putney)


Bowyer, Captain G. W. E.
Jackson, Lieut.-Col. Hon. F. S. (York)
Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)


Brittain, Sir Harry E.
Jones, William Kennedy (Hornsey)
Smithers, Alfred W.


Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Joynson-Hicks, William
Steel, Major S. Strang


Burn, T. H. (Belfast)
Law, A. J. (Rochdale)
Taylor, J. (Dumbarton)


Campbell, J. G. D.
Lloyd, George Butler
Wallace, J.


Campion, Col. W. R.
Locker-Lampson G. (Wood Green)
Whitla, Sir William


Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H.
Lonsdale, James R.
Williams, A. (Consett, Durham)


Casey, T. W.
Lowther, Major C. (Cumberland, N.)
Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough)


Cautley, Henry Strother
Maclean, Rt. Hon. Sir D. (Midlothian)
Willoughby, Lt.-Col. Hon. Claud


Cayzer, Major H. R.
McNeill, Ronald (Canterbury)
Wilson, Capt. A. Stanley (Hold'ness)


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord H. (Oxford Univ.)
Maddocks, Henry
Wilson, J. H. (South Shields)


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord R. (Hitchin)
Marriott, John Arthur R.
Wilson-Fox, Henry


Child, Brig.-General Sir Hill
Molson, Major John Elsdale
Wolmer, Viscount


Coats, Sir Stuart
Nelson, R. F. W. R.
Wood, Major Mackenzie (Aberdeen, C.)


Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.
Newman, Major J. (Finchley, Mddx.)
Yate, Col. Charles Edward


Colvin, Brigadier-General R. B.
Nicholson, W. (Petersfield)
Young, Sir F. W. (Swindon)


Cooper, Sir Richard Ashmole
Nield, Sir Herbert



Cory, Sir J. H. (Cardiff)
Norris, Colonel Sir Henry G.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr.


Craig, Captain Charles C. (Antrim)
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William
Leslie Scotland Mr. Marshall Stevens,


Craik, Right Hon. Sir Henry




NOES.


Amery, Lieut.-Col. L. C. M. S.
Craig, Col. Sir James (Down, Mid.)
Hacking, Captain D. H.


Arnold, Sydney
Crooks, Rt. Hon. William
Hall, F. (Yorks, Normanton)


Baird, John Lawrence
Dalziel, Sir Davison (Brixton)
Hambro, Angus Valdemar


Baldwin, Stanley
Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirk'dy)
Hamilton, Major C. G. C. (Altrincham)


Barlow, Sir Montague (Salford, S.)
Davidson, Major-Gen. Sir John H.
Hanson, Sir Charles


Barnes, Rt. Hon. G. N. (Gorbals)
Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
Harris, Sir H. P. (Paddington, S.)


Barnett, Captain Richard W.
Dawes, J. A.
Haslam, Lewis


Barnston, Major Harry
Dixon, Captain H.
Henry, Denis S, (Londonderry, S.)


Beauchamp, Sir Edward
Dockrell, Sir M.
Hilder, Lieutenant-Colonel F.


Beck, Arthur Cecil
Duncannon, Viscount
Hills, Major J. W. (Durham)


Bethell, Sir John Henry
Du Pre, Colonel W. B.
Hirst, G. H.


Birchall, Major J. D.
Edge, Captain William
Hoare, Lt.-Col. Sir Samuel J. G.


Bird, Alfred
Edwards, C. (Bedwelty)
Hodge, Rt. Hon. John


Boles, Lieut.-Col. D. F.
Elliot, Capt. W. E. (Lanark)
Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy


Borwick, Major G. O.
Entwistle, Major C. F.
Holmes, J. S.


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Eyres-Monsell, Commander
Hood, Joseph


Brassey, H. L. C.
Falcon, Captain M.
Hope, Lt.-Col. Sir J. (Midlothian)


Breese, Major C. E.
Farquharson, Major A. C.
Hopkins, J. W. W.


Bridgeman, William Clive
Fell, Sir Arthur
Hopkinson, Austin (Mossley)


Brown, Captain D. C. (Hexham)
Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.
Horne, Sir Robert (Hillhead)


Buchanan, Lieut.-Col. A. L. H.
Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue
Howard, Major S. G.


Burn, Colonel C. R. (Torquay)
Foreman, H.
Hudson, R. M.


Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred
Fraser, Major Sir Keith
Hunter, Gen. Sir A. (Lancaster)


Carr, W. T.
Ganzoni, Captain F. C.
Hurd, P. A.


Carter, W. (Mansfield)
Gardiner, J. (Perth)
Jesson, C.


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Evelyn (Aston Manor)
Geddes, Rt. Hon. Sir E. (Cambridge)
Jodrell, N. p.


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Birm., W.)
Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham
Jones, Sir Evan (Pembroke)


Cheyne, Sir William Watson
Gilbert, James Daniel
Jones, G, W. H. (Stoke Newington)


Clay, Capt. H. H. Spender
Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel John
Jones, J. (Silvertown)


Clynes, Rt. Hon. J. R.
Glanville, Harold James
Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen)


Coates, Major Sir Edward F.
Glyn, Major R.
Kellaway, Frederick George


Cohen, Major J. B. B.
Graham, W. (Edinburgh)
Kelly, Edward J. (Donegal, E.)


Colfox, Major W. P.
Green, J. F. (Leicester)
Kiley, James Daniel


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Greene, Lt.-Col. W. (Hackney, N.)
King, Com. Douglas


Coote, Colin R. (Isle of Ely)
Gregory, Holman
Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement


Cope, Major W. (Glamorgan)
Griggs, Sir Peter
Knight, Capt. E. A.


Courthope, Major George Loyd
Grundy, T. W.
Lambert, Rt. Hon. George


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish University)
Guest, Maj. Hon. O. (Leic., Loughboro')
Law, Right Hon. A. Bonar (Glasgow)


Cowan, Sir H. (Aberdeen and Kinc.)
Guinness, Lt.-Col. Hon. W. E. (B. St. E.)
Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ. Wales)


Loseby, Captain C. E.
Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike
Terrell, Capt. R. (Henley, Oxford)


Lowe, Sir F. W.
Peel, Lt.-Col. R. F. (Woodbridge)
Thomas, Brig.-Gen. Sir O. (Anglesey)


Lunn, William
Philipps, Gen. Sir I. (Southampton)
Thorne, Col. W. (Plaistow)


Lyle-Samuel, A. (Eye, E. Suffolk)
Philipps, Sir O. C. (Chester)
Tilfett, Benjamin


M'Donald, Dr. B. F. P. (Wallasey)
Pickering, Col. Emil w.
Tryon, Major George Clement


Mackinder, Halford J.
Pinkham, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles
Vickers, D.


M'Laren, R. (Lanark. N.)
Pollock, Sir Ernest Murray
Walker, Colonel William Hall


McMicking, Major Gilbert
Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton
Walters, Sir John Tudor


MacVeagh, Jeremiah
Pratt, John William
Ward-Jackson, Major C. L.


Magnus, Sir Philip
Pulley, Charles Thornton
Ward, Colonel L. (Kingston-upon-Hull)


Mallalieu, Frederick William
Purchase, H. G.
Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton)


Malone, Major P. (Tottenham, S.)
Raw, Lieutenant-Colonel Dr. N.
Wardle, George J.


Marks, Sir George Croydon
Rees, Sir J. D. (Nottingham, E.)
Weigall, Lt.-Col. W. E. G. A.


Mason, Robert
Reid, D. D.
White, Charles F. (Derby, W.)


Mitchell, William Lane-
Richardson, R. (Houghton)
Wignall, James


Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred Moritz
Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)
Wild, Sir Ernest Edward


Moreing, Captain Algernon H.
Roundell, Lieutenant-Colonel R. IV
Williams, Col. Sir R. (Dorset, W.)


Morgan, Major D. Watts
Rowlands, James
Williamson, Rt. Hon. Sir Archibald


Morrison, H. (Salisbury)
Royce, William Stapleton
Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Stourbridge)


Morrison-Bell, Major A. C.
Royds, Lt-Col. Edmund
Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)


Mosley, Oswald
Rutherford, Sir W. W. (Edge Hill)
Winterton, Major Earl


Mount, William Arthur
Sanders, Colonel Robert Arthur
Wood, Sir H. K. (Woolwich, W.)


Murray, Lt.-Col. Hon. A. C. (Aberdeen)
Seager, Sir William
Wood, Sir J. (Stalybridge and Hyde)


Murray, Major C. D. (Edinburgh, S.)
Shaw, Hon. A. (Kilmarnock)
Wood, Major S. Hill- (High Peak)


Murray, Hon. G. (St. Rollox)
Simm, Colonel M. T.
Woolcock, W. J. U.


Murray, William (Dumfries)
Sprot, Colonel Sir Alexander
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Nall, Major Joseph
Stanley, Colonel Hon. G. F. (Preston)
Yeo, Sir Alfred William


Neal, Arthur
Stewart, Gershom
Young, Robert (Newton, Lancs.)


Newbould, A. E.
Strauss, Edward Anthony



Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. (Exeter)
Sturrock, J. Leng-
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Lord E.


O'Grady, James
Surtess, Brig.-General H. C.
Talbot and Captain F. Guest.


Parry, Major Thomas Henry
Talbot, G. A. (Hemel Hempstead)

CLAUSE 9.—(Extraordinary Traffic.)

Any transport service on roads established by the Ministry shall be subject to the provisions of the Locomotives (Amendment) Act, 1878 (or any amendment thereof), in regard to extraordinary traffic.

Amendments made: Leave out the words
of the Locomotives (Amendment) Act, 1878 (or any amendment thereof), in regard to extraordinary,

and insert instead thereof the words "relating to." At end, insert the words
contained in the Highways and Locomotives (Amendment) Act, 1878, or in Scotland the -Roads and Bridges (Scotland) Act, 1878, or in Ireland the Public Roads (Ireland) Act, 1911 (as amended by any subsequent enactment)."— [Sir Eric Geddes.]

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: I beg to move, to add
(2) no claim for extraordinary traffic shall arise in respect of traffic on any roads made or reconstructed with the assistance of advances from the Minister.
The effect of this Amendment is that no claim for extraordinary traffic shall arise in respect of roads made or reconstructed with the assistance from the Minister. It is a rather technical question. Under various Acts of Parliament anybody carrying heavy ordinary or extraordinary traffic along any road is liable to pay to the highway authority any damage caused thereby. There have been a very long (series of decisions under this law for years past to do what is, or is not, extraordinary
traffic. I do not ask that the law as to ordinary traffic should be dealt with as a whole. It is too long and too complicated for that to be done here, but I hope my right hon. Friend will, before he has been the Minister under this Act very long, realise that it is absolutely essential to alter and to consolidate the law in regard to extraordinary traffic and to remove this liability when the Minister makes a new road or gives an advantage to a highway authority to make a new road. It has now been conclusively proved that there is a strong need for extraordinary traffic in this country. I would like to instance the case of a road very near this House. I am informed that in Victoria Street the road has been so splendidly made that the repairs cost less than the cost of repairing an ordinary macadam road. When my right hon. Friend makes a new road I hope he will not tinker any longer with this question. I know that ordinary pleasure motoring is not very popular in this House, but the development of commercial motoring, and of steam locomotive, is bound to increase year by year, as years roll on, and as soon as large numbers of the road locomotives and road lorries used in France are released for commerce and agriculture of this country there is bound to be a very large increase of heavy road traffic on our roads. We all hope and pray that my right hon. Friend will give a great impetus to the reconstruction of the roads of the country, and I ask, therefore, that when roads are
reconstructed they shall be made sufficiently strong to bear this traffic. I can assure my right hon. Friend that his own technical advisers will tell him it will be cheaper in the long run, so far as the cost of repairing is concerned, to reconstruct the roads properly, instead of half doing it.

Mr. REMER: I beg to second the Amendment.
It is one of the greatest importance to certain trades, and one of the trades to which it is most important is the home grown English timber trade, the young home-grown trade which came into existence during the War. This trade was almost impossible to carry on in pre-war days, because of the heavy claims for damage to roads which were always liable to fall upon it. In fact, the trader never knew how much he might be called upon to pay for repairing the roads, and that almost killed the trade. I should like to point out to the House that during the War the Board of Trade brought in a Regulation by which the cost of this extraordinary traffic was borne by the State. If it was necessary during the War to have a provision of that kind, surely it is of equal importance at the present time, and it is on that ground that I second the Amendment.

Mr. J. JONES: As a member of a local authority in the East-End of London, I hope the Minister will stand absolutely adamant against this Amendment. It is all very well for hon. Gentlemen who are interested in particular trades to come into Committee, and also into the House, to advocate the claims of their own particular trade —

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: The hon. Gentleman is a new Member of this House, otherwise he would know that I have no interest whatever in the trades affected by this Bill.

7.0 P.M.

Mr. JONES: I quite accept the hon. Gentleman's explanation of his own disinterestedness, but I have, at least, my doubts as to his non-association with those who are interested. I am only interested as an ordinary resident in a working-class district in the East-End of London, and this Amendment which is being proposed means that the district in which I live will have claim on the road authority where these people are destroying
our roads, or, at any rate, making them almost impassable. As I understand this Amendment, any kind of traffic could be put on the roads and the local authority would have no claim. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] What, then, is the object of the speeches we have just heard? An hon. Member mentioned the timber trade, and claimed consideration for it. In some districts particularly approaching the docks our roads are being spoiled and we have no redress. The hon. Member fur Twickenham referred to Victoria Street being so well made up, but at whose expense? It cannot be used for tramways, and is confined to the 'buses, while the 'bus authority paid practically nothing towards the making of the street and the same thing happens in all the streets in the inner area of London. The outer area, because of the monopoly which exists in the centre, is practically scarified by motor traffic, which pays practically nothing to the maintenance outside particular districts. Am I not right?

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: As the hon. Gentleman asks me, surely he ought to know that this House has imposed special taxation on motors and motor cars, amounting to a very considerable sum per annum, and at about almost £3,000,000, and I expect it will be £5,000,000, while the total cost of the repair of roads is £20,000,000.

Mr. JONES: Is the hon. Gentleman speaking about the Petrol Tax?

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Petrol Tax and licences.

Mr. JONES: But those do not in any way meet the claims of the local authorities in the maintenance of roads. What share do we in the East End get of what goes to the Road Board. We have tried to get assistance for the widening of roadways in our district, but have been told we cannot because they are arterial roads. Local authorities are in this matter practically helpless, and, therefore, we oppose this Amendment because we require national roadways and national authorities to control our traffic.

Sir E. POLLOCK: We are unable to accept this Amendment. I understand the object of the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Joynson-Hicks) is to ensure that in the interests of economy roads should
be constructed with strong foundations and good surfaces and that it would be cheaper to maintain such roads than those constructed on different lines. The way in which the proposal is sought to be carried out is by saying that no claim for extraordinary traffic shall arise in respect of traffic on any roads made or reconstructed with the assistance of advances from the Minister. In other words, where the Minister has given the assistance of some advance that is to take away the right the road authorities at present have to be reimbursed for damages incurred in respect of exceptionally heavy traffic. I think it would be rather unfair to leave the road authorities in the position that if they accepted some advance from the Minister to enable roads to be repaired they should at the same time lose the right to make the claim which this House has already agreed to in respect of damage done by extraordinary traffic. I think the road authorities of the country would be very much disconcerted if this Amendment were carried. The Clause deals with roads made or reconstructed, but the Minister would not be responsible for maintenance or for other purposes along the whole length. Under those circumstances the arrangement would still prevail that each particular locality would be the authority for its own roads, and I am quite sure the local authority ought still to be entrusted with the powers given to it to make a claim in proper cases. I trust, therefore, my hon. Friend will feel convinced that his Amendment, proposed in the interests of economy, hardly effects that object and that it would do much to alter the whole system and powers of the road authorities throughout the Kingdom and therefore we are unable to accept it.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: In asking leave to withdraw, may I say I did not enter fully into the subject as I knew the hon. and learned Gentleman was aware of the position? With regard to all the main roads of the country I think I am right in saying there can be no such thing as "extraordinary traffic." There is no such thing in London, as the highways authority are compelled to have roads to stand the traffic which goes upon them. That is the law at present. I think the highway authorities are as keen and as anxious as I am to get rid of the difficulties which constantly crop up in connection with roads which are on the verge of and are becoming main roads and desire that they should be made strong enough for the large
traffic. There is no question of seeking to rob the hon. Member for Silvertown (Mr. J. Jones).

Mr. JONES: What about new motor traffic?

Amendment by leave, withdrawn.

CLAUSE 10.—(Power As To Railway Wagons.)

(1) It shall be lawful for the Minister to purchase privately-owned railway wagons required for use on any railway on such terms and conditions as may be authorised by or under an Order in Council, a draft whereof has been approved by a Resolution passed by both Houses of Parliament, and to work or lease any such wagons when so purchased, or to apportion them among the several railway under takings in such manner, on such terms, and subject to such conditions as may be provided by or under the Order:

Provided that the Minister shall not be entitled to purchase in England and Wales or Scotland or Ireland, respectively, wagons used for the conveyance of any particular class of traffic unless he purchases all privately-owned wagons so used which belong to or are used by persons carrying on business therein and which comply with the regulations with respect to such wagons in force at the date of such purchase.

(2) Where in the case of any wagon which has been in use on or before the fifteenth day of May, nineteen hundred and nineteen, the wagon has since that date been the subject of a purchase agreement the price paid on such purchase shall not be evidence of the value of the wagon in determining the price to be paid by the Minister.

(3) Where the Minister exercises his powers of purchasing wagons under this Section, or of prohibiting, limiting, or restricting the use of privately-owned wagons, the following pro visions shall have effect:
(a) The reasonable facilities which every rail way company is required to afford under Section two of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1854, as amended or explained by any other Act, shall where the railway wagons of traders of any class have been purchased include the pro vision of suitable railway wagons for the use of traders of that class:
(b)Where the provision of wagons is not included in the authorised maximum rates of conveyance, a railway company may charge for the use of such wagons such sums as may be directed by the Minister under Section three of this Act, and if and so far as no such directions are in force any sums not exceeding those prescribed for the use of such wagons by any Railway Rates and Charges Order applicable thereto:
(c) Notwithstanding the provisions of any other Act or any decision there under, in determining what sum may be charged under the provisions of any Railway Rates and Charges Order for the detention of wagons at the premises of any trader, regard shall be had to the requirements and reasonable usages of the trade at those premises carried on in connection with which such wagons are used.

(4) Notwithstanding any statutory or other provision to the contrary it shall be lawful for the Minister to make regulations prohibiting the use on railways of privately-owned wagons or limiting or restricting the number of wagons to be so used and prescribing the type and capacity thereof:

Provided that nothing in this Act shall authorise the prohibition of the use on railways of such wagons as comply with regulations for the time being in force made in pursuance of the Railways Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845, or any other enactment in force at the date of the passing of this Act and as are in use, under repair, or in course of construction at that date.

Mr. STEVENS: I desire to move, in Sub-section (1), after the word "purchase" ["Minister to purchase"], to insert the words
seventy thousand.
This is an entirely separate Section of the Bill, and provides for an expenditure of £70,000,000, or almost that amount. That is notwithstanding the fact that we were promised on Second Reading, and afterwards on the Money Resolution, that Orders in Council should not be carried into effect. The Home Secretary said in the course of the Debate on the Money Resolution:
I cannot help thinking that there has been a good deal of misunderstanding in the course of the Debate. Many hon. Members who have spoken have forgotten the fact that the power to move by Order in Council in very big matters has been given up by the Government.
This Clause provides for the nationalisation of some 700,000 wagons, at a cost estimated by the Home Secretary of from £80 to £100 per wagon. An hon. Member called it the nationalisation of so much rubbish. We want wagons badly at present, but we do not want 700,000. The Minister-designate, uninvited by us, put in a provision in Committee by which, if he takes one coal wagon he must take them all, and we know he must have some coal wagons. The wagons which we want replaced are those sent to France. The figure was given today as 30,000, and of those, 3,000 are coming back, and we want others to make up the deficiency. I know of one private undertaking which was 1,900 wagons short on Saturday last, and the details have been given to the President of the Board of Trade. It is a firm which delivers food stuffs and raw materials in a district near Manchester. The result was that towns in that neighbourhood went short of butter on Saturday for that reason. There is this huge wastage. Why is it going on? Simply because we have not some of these private wagons worked in with the railway companies' wagons. There is not the
slightest necessity for that being done under this Bill. What did the Leader of the House say?
As a matter of fact, all the powers which my right hon. Friend is going to have in these two years have been preserved under Defence of the Realm Regulations during the War.
Of the 700,000 privately-owned wagons which the Minister is seeking to take over under this Clause, the owners would gladly give, on easy terms for the period of two or three years during which they are wanted, 10 per cent. of them, so long as they are allowed to continue their own business in their own way, with their own privately-owned wagons, as they have been accustomed to all these years. Ten per cent. of the 700,000 wagons the Board of Trade can have to-morrow—they ought to have had them six months ago—by agreement with the owners of the wagons upon the most reasonable terms. So the congestion, so far as it is due to the requirement of wagons for general merchandise would be done away with entirely. There is no necessity for the whole of the wagons of the country to be purchased by the Ministry. It will be seen that under the Bill the Minister is acquiring the wagons under Orders in Council. There are three different steps by which he will have to proceed to obtain them. Let me put to the House the absurdity of the situation. We are wanting these wagons badly to-day, yet we have to wait until this Bill becomes law, until an Order in Council is obtained, and until Resolutions are passed by both Houses of Parliament, merely in order to get rid of the congestion that exists. As to the merits of taking the whole of these wagons, it should be known to the House that this is the system adopted alone now on the North-Eastern Railway Company, where privately-owned wagons are not allowed by the railway company in the sense that they obtained powers in 1890 for excessive rates in regard to the provision of wagons themselves, and consequently it does not pay any private-wagon owner to run wagons on the line. The Midland Company tried the experiment, but had to give it up. Under this Clause there is the North-Easternisation of the railways of the country, on this question of privately-owned wagons. The privately-owned wagons perform a very much more-useful function than is generally understood. It is not only a question of the haulage of traffic, but to a considerable extent it is a question of the storage of
traffic as well. I do not mean by that that the traffic is to be stored on a public railway. Why should the traders of the country be prevented, as this Clause would preclude them, from owning their own wagons in which to store their own traffic and send it out on to the statutory railways when and how they think fit— subject always, of course, to the Regulations—and be placed under conditions which must follow if their wagons are taken from them, namely, that they will have to pay huge charges for demurrage if they carry on their business in the way they have been in the habit of carrying it on? Take the case of an iron mine in Northamptonshire, or of blast furnaces in Staffordshire, where there must be a continuous supply of traffic in order to keep the furnaces going. Why should not the owners of private wagons go on using their wagons at the termini for storage purposes? Why should not coal-owners hold back stocks of coal in their private wagons waiting for the necessities as they arise, for quickly bunkering steamers, and matters of that sort?
I wish to address the House principally on the financial side of the matter. The Clause provides that if any portion of any one class of wagons is taken over by the Minister in England, Wales, or Scotland, respectively, he is bound to take the whole. That means that if he takes any coal wagons in England, he is committed and commits this House to an expenditure of £50,000,000. It is no use saying that there is a proviso that he may make terms of hire-purchase, because upstairs the Minister-designate promised us that the owners of wagons should have the option of payment in cash. There is no provision in the Bill for that, but, nevertheless, the promise was made. The Minister-designate has had the position before him for some eight or nine months. He told the House on the Second Reading that he meant to have the wagons. The Leader of the House said that they meant to have the wagons. Quotations will be made presently, from which it will be seen the one thing the Minister-designate has stated as being his policy throughout the whole of this Bill is that he means to have these railway wagons. Why does he not decide how many railway wagons he wants and ask this House if they will foot the bill? I am not saying for a moment that he may not be right in having them all.
Certainly he will be right if we decide for nationalisation, but this is one of the matters on which I submit with the greatest strength that the question of nationalisation ought to be considered before the country is committed to the purchase of 700,000 railway wagons. This Clause only provides for the buying of privately-owned wagons. I pointed that out upstairs, and asked that the words "privately-owned" should be deleted from the Clause, so that the Minister might also buy the railway companies' wagons. If there is a real pooling and nationalisation of wagons, the whole of the wagons, both railway-owned and privately-owned, must come in under one separate management outside the railway companies; then the best interests of pooling would be served. I beg to move—

Mr. SPEAKER: Does the hon. Member move the Amendment on the Paper?

Mr. STEVENS: I suppose it is the only one I can move. I should prefer to move the deletion of the Clause.

Mr. SPEAKER: I asked that because the hon. Member gave notice of a manuscript Amendment which is the converse of that on the Paper. Which does he move?

Mr. STEVENS: I beg to move, in Subsection (1), to leave out the word "privately-owned."
This is the manuscript Amendment.

Mr. REMER: I beg to second the-Amendment.

Sir F. BANBURY: I understood that the hon. Member (Mr. Stevens) was moving the Amendment on the Paper, which is to insert, after the word "purchase," the words "seventy thousand." I now understand that the Amendment he has-moved is to leave out the words "privately-owned." The result of that will be-to negative the Clause altogether, because it is not necessary to give the Minister the power to purchase railway wagons. He has that without this Clause. With the Amendment, the Clause will read:
It shall be lawful for the Minister to purchase railway wagons required for use on any railway on such terms and conditions as may be authorised
which is quite superfluous and unnecessary. As the hon. Member has spoken to his Amendment on the Paper, I will endeavour to deal with the arguments he advanced.

Mr. SPEAKER: That will not do. Perhaps the better plan would be for the hon. Member (Mr. Stevens) to move the Amendment which stands on the Paper.

Mr. STEVENS: May I move the deletion of Clause 10?

Mr. SPEAKER: No. The hon. Member can move the Amendment on the Paper, to insert after the word "purchase" the words seventy thousand.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. STEVENS: I beg to move, in Subsection (1), after the word "purchase" ["purchase privately - owned railway wagons required"], to insert the words "seventy thousand."

Sir F. BANBURY: I suppose I shall now be in order in dealing with the arguments of the hon. Member, which were that it would be advisable to purchase 70,000 railway wagons, but that it would not be advisable to purchase more. I cannot follow that line of argument. The hon. Member went on to say that it was necessary to deal with the private owners of these wagons, because they would be unable to keep them standing on their own private lines and use them as stores. I would ask the House to consider what the effect of this will be. It is really very important, if economies are to be made, that the Ministry should have power to acquire these wagons. As matters stand at present, a privately-owned wagon has to be taken out of a train made up of all sorts of wagons, many of them not privately owned. It is shunted and sorted and sent back to the place from whence it came. It cannot be used by the railway company for any other purpose. There is much time and labour lost in the shunting out of this particular wagon and sending it back empty, as the hon. Member knows. The hon. Member says such wagons should be allowed to stand on the private sidings owned by the trader. Let me point out what occurs. Suppose there are forty or fifty loaded wagons belonging to A standing on a private siding, all consigned to different destinations. The hon. Member wants to keep forty-nine out of the fifty to be used as stores.

Mr. STEVENS: I am talking of privately-owned wagons, worked by privately-owned locomotives, where the railway companies have no service whatever to perform.

Sir F. BANBURY: That is not the Amendment, because that deals with privately-owned wagons. The hon. Member does not quite seem to know what it is he wants to move. First he tried to move the deletion of the Clause, then his manuscript Amendment, and now the Amendment on the Paper, which he says deals with wagons on railways privately owned and worked by privately-owned locomotives. It is quite clear that the hon. Member does not understand his own Amendment, and it would be absurd for the Government to accept it. May I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he need not waste the time of the House any longer? He should say he cannot accept the Amendment.

Mr. REMERrose —

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has exhausted his right by speaking. He said he seconded the Amendment.

Mr. REMER: On a point of Order. The Amendment I seconded was the first Amendment, not the second.

Sir R. COOPER: May I try to put the-matter a little more clearly before the House and express what I know the hon. Member (Mr. Stevens) has in mind in moving this Amendment? It is of vast importance to many traders that they are able to carry on with their privately-owned wagons, or, if the right hon. Gentleman finds later on that it is necessary to exercise the powers conferred upon him in this Act, that they are going to be assured an adequate and regular service of Government-owned trucks with which they can carry on. That is really the reason why my hon. Friend has put down the Amendment. It is a matter on which very great anxiety is felt throughout the country. I do not believe the traders want to stand in the least in the way of the Government doing all that is necessary to improve the service of the railways or to economise, as we all recognise the Government well can do if it propery administers the powers which will be conferred upon it under this Bill. What they want is some assurance that when their property is taken away from them, property they have acquired for specific purposes, to ensure that they will have a regular supply coming in day by day in such quantities as they require them, all shall be treated alike.

Mr. L. SCOTT: I welcome the remarks of the hon. Baronet, but they -will come more appropriately on an Amendment in my name for that specific purpose.

Mr. STEVENS: I beg to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Sir F. LOWE: I beg to move, after the word "wagons" ["to purchase privately owned railway wagons"], to insert the words
other than wagons owned by a local authority.
My object in moving this is to protect the interests of gas and similar undertakings run by local authorities who own wagons. The Birmingham City Council owns 1,300 or 1,400 wagons which they use in connection with their gas undertakings, and they use them most effectively to ensure the success of their undertaking. I believe they save something like £13,000 a year, which must be of great advantage to the consumers of gas. Probably there are many gas undertakings similarly situated, and I ask my hon. Friends who represent municipal institutions to give me their support. I cannot for the life of me see why wagons of this sort used or running particular local undertakings should be called upon to be used in connection with a national service of transport. It might be different with wagons which are used in connection with more general undertakings, but this is a local undertaking in which these wagons are fully employed, and they cannot be spared. There is no time for which they might be available to be used in connection with the national machine. This affects not only the municipality which I represent, but a good many other municipalities throughout the country which own and run their own gas undertakings.

Mr. NEAL: I beg to second the Amendment.

Sir E. GEDDES: This maybe a convenient opportunity to put before the House the principle underlying the provisions of this Clause. I think the House would like to know really why the Government thinks it necessary to take over all wagons as a whole. About half the wagons of the country do not belong to railway companies, but to what we call private owners, which does not exclude corporations or statutory companies. In only very few instances are they of general use. They are built for a specific purpose, and
are suitable for that purpose and not for general use. They are of the cheapest construction because they do not have to fulfil, in most instances, a dual purpose. There is no object to the owners of the wagons, in the vast majority of cases, in increasing the capacity of the wagons at all. If they are accustomed to use ten ton wagons there is no advantage to them in increasing their capacity or in making them available in slack times for some other trade. Then from the working point of view there is a great deal of additional expense. Obviously when the wagons arrive at their destinations and are empty, or are brought in with other empties to the loading place, it is a. tremendous additional work for the railway companies to sort them all out. It is like dealing out a pack of cards. If you have to give one man all the diamonds and another all the hearts it is much more laborious to sort them out in that way than to deal them out in the ordinary way. That is exactly the way with wagons, and in addition to that, as they are of special construction and as you cannot divert them from a direct route on the back journey, there is a great deal of empty haulage, and it is for these reasons, to save the shunting, to save the empty haulage, and to get a more general use out of the wagons and to get wagons of larger capacity, which would economise in the working expenses of the railways, that it has been thought necessary to introduce such a far-reaching provision as this. It is a very big provision in the Bill, and it is well that we should discuss it as such. To show what can be done with the common user of wagons, which was only brought in during the War, we find that in the instance of one railway system where they watch the working and compare the difference between the two systems, we found that whereas the empties used to be 75 per cent. of the loaded passing through certain selected points, after common user was introduced it fell to 34 per cent.
A similar example taken in rather a different way on another railway gave a. decrease in the empty haulage, without any other explanation, of 34 per cent. between two comparable periods. In. shunting we have two estimates by two independent railway companies, not made out for the purpose of this Bill at all but for the purpose of seeing what advantage they had themselves gained by the
common user of rolling stock. A Scotch railway took six specific points, and they found they reduced the shunting by 50 per cent. by being able to send wagons anywhere, instead of having to sort out individual empties to send to a particular destination. If that was the case with the common user of railway owned rolling stock, how much more would it be the case when you have innumerable collieries and works, all of which must get back their particular wagons which have to be sorted out of the empties which are in the yard. Another railway has estimated its saving in engine power. None of these estimates has been got out on a common basis, but they have been got out by the railway companies for their own information as to what was gained by a common user. A calculation shows that in engine power alone, with the common user of rolling stock, there would be a saving to the country of £2,800,000. These are the practical instances which I have been able to obtain of the result of a common user applied to their own stock.
The next point is the question of capacity. I have already mentioned that in very few instances is the capacity of the wagon really of much importance to the trader owning wagons for his own business. A change to a higher capacity might mean an alteration in the operation of your works, not important in itself, but something that has to be done. Therefore, as the low capacity wagon suits him perfectly well, he goes on with it. I have been able to get a census of privately-owned wagons, of which there are, approximately, 700,000. I have obtained a census of 650,000 of these wagons, and I find that, out of 650,000 wagons, 500,000 were under 12-ton capacity. In modern conditions that is a very low capacity of wagon working through the country and working on heavy train. In addition, 112,000 were only of 10-tons capacity, so that, out of 650,000 wagons, 612,000 are under 12-tons capacity.

Mr. STEVENS: How does that compare with the wagons owned by the British railway companies?

Sir E. GEDDES: I can only give one comparison, and that is the railway that my hon. Friend referred to, because that is the only railway on which there is not a large amount of private rolling stock. You have to get a railway in that position
before you can really give a comparison. On that particular railway there are practically no privately-owned wagons.

Mr. STEVENS: I am referring to the capacity of the railway-owned wagons on the North-Eastern.

Sir E. GEDDES: On that railway 40 per cent. of the wagons are.12 tons or over, with an average capacity of 16½ tons. On the other hand, taking the private wagons as a whole, 500,000 out of 650,000 (of which I have obtained a census), or nearly 80 per cent., are of less than 12 tons capacity. I think that answers the hon. Member's point. As to the importance of increasing the capacity, the House will readily understand that it conies in in many ways. It saves you in the length of your trains, which is becoming a very important factor. Most of the railways are finding that on their long-distance traffic they are becoming limited owing to the increased power of the locomotives, by the length of the sidings; and that is a very difficult thing to alter. It saves you in the capacity of your warehouses, and it saves you very materially in the paying load of your train. Take as an example the paying load of your train. Eighty-one wagons of 10 tons capacity carry 810 tons; eighteen 45-ton wagons also carry 810 tons. The dead weight in the first instance of the non-paying load is 972 tons. but by pulling in a bigger capacity wagon you cut the non-paying load down to 648 tons. That will give you, when you have proper wagons for the additional traffic you can carry, a net increase of ninety paying tons on the load of the train. With a 20-ton wagon you get seventy additional paying tons. If you reckon this on a consignment of coal and put it into money, you will find that on a 45-ton wagon train you would earn £30 more for your trip from Yorkshire to London, while with a 20-ton wagon train you would earn £23 more on your trip, so that there is an immediate increase in the earning capacity of your locomotives and rolling stock. In addition, you have all the other advantages which I have described.
Generally speaking, you get a great saving by having a common user of rolling stock. Take the question of shipping appliances. A great deal of the coal carried in these wagons is for shipment, and undoubtedly the cheapest and economical from that point of view is the hopper bottom wagon, but you cannot use that
unless you have special appliances. Owing to private ownership of wagons it has become practically impossible to gradually change your methods. You may wish to put in appliances to deal with coal shipped from hopper-bottom instead of end-door wagons, but, unless you can get the change completely organised on a properly thought-out plan, you have for a long time to go on with dual appliances— the newer for the hopper-bottom wagon, and the older for the end-door wagon. The diversity in type of wagon has absolutely blocked any improvement in the rolling stock of the country. If we were to leave out the particular block of wagon which my hon. Friend spoke for, or the wagons belonging to local authorities or public bodies, we should be simply vitiating the principle that you must have a common user of rolling stock, and you must have that rolling stock developed and designed on a progressive basis. We are standing still with rolling stock because there is no incentive to the owner to have the higher-capacity wagon. If the owners look at it from a business point of view, there is no incentive to change to the higher capacity, but there is a great incentive to the carrier. To-day you have to operate your railways in a scientific way, and one way is to increase the capacity of your merchandise and mineral-carrying rolling stock. You will get economies from that and from a common user which are incalculable, but you cannot get it so long as you leave wagons privately owned in this country.
There are other economies which can be secured. Hon. Members will have seen correspondence in the Press about the hundreds of types of axle wheels, and the hundreds of parts of running gear, etc. These things can be counted by the thousands. There great economies can be made. All these, however, are subsidiary. What you want is the development of an economic unit of types that are of the best for common user, along with the common user. Common user by itself is not enough. You must have a development of economic types which are capable of common user Take the case of coal. Practically the whole of the gas coal of the country is carried in wagons which distribute from the bottom. They are either hopper or they are bottom doors. Practically the whole of the shipment of coal from Immingham, round the whole of our line of coast until the For this reached—excluding from the Forth to the Humber—is
shipped by end-door wagons. The wagon that carries the gas coal is of no use unless it is fitted with end doors, but the man who ships the gas coal, or the gas company that owns wagons for its own purposes, do not want end-door but bottom-door wagons. The land sale coal is practically all shipped in side-door wagons, which are not available for either the shipped or the gas company. Therefore, you get these three types of wagons. Unless you can change the type of wagon you cannot effect economies, and you cannot make improvements unless you get control and make all wagons suitable for common user. It was suggested first to take over 70,000 wagons. It has been suggested that we should exempt wagons belonging to some particular owner because they have been regularly used. That would not really meet the point; we shall have to make arrangements to give suitable wagons to works which can only discharge them in a certain way. That will certainly be a duty. With respect to the process of running wagons on a shuttle service, that is quite a common practice, and probably would be adopted if the wagons could not be run on any other service and if they could be most economically run in that way. But to exclude one particular class or one particular service of wagons would vitiate the whole principle. You cannot deal with this matter satisfactorily unless you deal with it as a whole. Therefore, I hope the House will not accept any Amendments which tend in that direction. Much as I would like to accept some of them, because there is a great deal to be said to that particular class of exception, but it would interfere with the whole scheme of trying to get a better rolling-stock service, and a more economic rolling-stock service, throughout the country.

Sir F. LOWE: I think the right hon. Gentleman said that wagons owned by local authorities would come within the description of privately-owned wagons. Would he tell us why he thinks that wagons owned by local authorities are privately-owned wagons? There is no definition in the Bill to that effect.

Sir E. GEDDES: It certainly is intended that all wagons other than those owned by the statutory railway companies should be treated as privately owned. I was advised at the time that privately owned in that sense was sufficiently well understood to carry that definition. If there is any
doubt upon that I will, by leave of the House, put in words that will make it perfectly clear. If this is to be of any value we must have all the wagons of the country brought into the one hotchpotch, and the only way it can be done is to acquire these wagons, to apportion them, to insist on the present system of common user of railway-owned wagons to centrally control them, and to allocate them to district and railway companies upon a proper basis.

8.0 P.M.

Sir F. FLANNERY: With respect to the meaning of the words "privately owned," if the Amendment of the hon. Member for Eccles was accepted, and to strike out the words "privately owned," the Clause would then cover railway wagons of all kinds. I rose, however, for the purpose of eliciting any further explanation that may be necessary upon the question of the adaptation of wagons that are now specially used for special purposes. The hon. Member for Birmingham referred to wagons used in the gas trade. It is well known that wagons used in the gas trade are hopper-bottom wagons. They are provided not only to receive coal but also to discharge coal with the greatest possible facility and economy by simply opening the coal floors in the places required for carbonisation This is of very great importance to members of the gas trade. What I want to get perfectly clearly from my right hon. Friend is that in the administration of his Department due regard will be had in the adaptation of wagons to economic discharge especially in such important matters as gas works and the public supply of electric lighting, and that his Department, in dealing with the adaptation of transport will try to see that wagons will be selected with a double object in view of facility and economy of transport and facility and economy of discharge as well as of loading. That is what my right hon. Friend intends, I am sure, but he will remove a great amount of opposition outside, which is reflected in this House, if he will make that clear.

Sir E. GEDDES: I would like if I may to reply to that point. It would be essential that wagons of the proper type should be provided in order to get a quick turn round, but also in the interest of the receiver due regard must be paid to the facilities of discharging at the receiving end. After what has been said I think it
will interest the House to know this. The cheapest wagon for discharging is the hopper-bottom wagon, and only 2 per cent. of privately-owned wagons are hopper-bottom. Thirty-three per cent. are side door, and 55 per cent. end and side door, so that it is only common sense to carry it out from the transportation point of view.

Mr. WIGNALL: I quite agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has stated, but there is one point that must not be lost sight of. Wagons have got to be built according to the conditions in which they are used. Take, for instance, the whole of the South Wales coal tipping. The tips are built for the purpose, and no other kind of wagon is of any use at all. The same thing applies in the North-East Coast. Wagons that are used there would not be of the slightest use in South Wales and vice versâ, so while the arrangements for the tipping of coal are such as they are wagons of that type must be used for the purpose, so that it is important in the Bill to give power to the Minister to take possession of all types and conditions of wagons, so that they can be used for the purposes for which they were constructed. I may emphasise the enormous lose of time in our docks. particularly in the shunting and sorting out of these wagons. I have seen ships with valuable cargoes hold up not for hours but for days, because of that. There have been plenty of wagons, but they could not use them for the very purpose for which they could be used, and I have seen hundreds of men lying idle waiting for the shunting and sorting out of these wagons. That is the kind of thing that make people almost go frantic, both employers and workmen, because if a man is on piecework he is losing his earning power while waiting, and the employer naturally is annoyed because of the delay in carrying out his work, and the whole thing becomes a mass of confusion. One could multiply instances of the confusion existing at the present time, so that the taking over of the whole of the wagons of all types is so important that it would be madness to think of sending the North-Eastern wagons to South Wales. First of all they are too large for the purpose for which they would be intended, and it would be madness to think of sending the wagons used in the collieries of South Wales to the North-East. But in many other ways there is a very large margin that could be used for various purposes. The greatest achieve-
ment in this Bill is the taking over of wagons by the Ministry so that they can be used to the fullest advantage of the country.

Major MOLSON: May I appeal to the Minister in charge of the Bill in favour of the owners of privately-owned wagons. I have been very much impressed by the splendid way in which he has explained his point of view, but this Bill is meant not only for the purposes of transport but for the interests of trade and commerce, and we should consider the interest of manufacturers and industries rather than merely the interest of transport. I entirely appreciate the point, on which he has laid stress, as to the necessity of having these large wagons which have entirely knocked out the small wagons in America, but I am sure it will remove a great deal of the opposition if he will undertake to consider the owners of private wagons in a conciliatory and reasonable manner.

Sir R. COOPER: I am quite in sympathy with the purpose which the right hon. Gentleman wishes to serve, but there is one point about which I am a little anxious, as to the legitimate protection of traders who may be affected by his policy. As I understand, if this acquisition of privately-owned wagons is really to be a success, it must be done in a whole-hearted manner. The right hon. Gentleman has promised that he would bear in mind the interest of receivers' wagons, especially with regard to the facilities for discharging loads. But there is one particular in which I do not see that there is any Clause giving protection to the trader. That is in the case of special wagons which are used in very large numbers in this country for the purpose of conveying liquids. I think that they usually run to about 6,000 gallons. I am quite prepared to believe that he will ultimately effect a great deal of economy in railway traffic by insisting on much larger wagons of that particular type. But those tanks at the present time are of the capacity for which traders have adapted their works. Their tanks and so on are really adapted for taking in the 6,000 gallon load of material. Is there any provision in this Clause as to such cases, or can the right hon. Gentleman tell the traders of this country that, where he may find it necessary to upset that particular size and thereby upset the regular working of factories, he will give reason-
able notice to traders, in order that they may adapt their works to meet the needs of the large wagons, and tanks which he may find it necessary to have on the railways? I do not see that there is any protection afforded here.

Sir E. GEDDES: We will come to this point on a later Amendment, but in Clause 10, Section (3, a), there is a provision that suitable railway wagons for the use of traders should be provided with reasonable facilities.

Sir R. COOPER: That would include capacity.

Sir E. GEDDES: Certainly, and again at the top of page 16, in Sub-clause (3, c), there is provision with regard to the usage of the trade, so that there is full recognition of the cases to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. But although power is taken now to take over wagons generally, and there is no exclusion, at the present stage there is no intention at all to touch these special wagons, such as are used for carrying tarmac, and those used for carrying oils and liquids. But if oil fuel became very much more general, as it may well do, then it might be that it would be a suitable thing to take over those wagons. At the present time there is no intention of taking over such special wagons as these, but full recognition is given to the principle of looking after the interest of the trader.

Sir F. LOWE: After the explanation which has been given by my right hon. Friend, I do not wish to press the matter.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Sir J. HARMOOD-BANNER: I beg to move. in Sub-section (1), after the word "Parliament" ["passed by both Houses of Parliament"], to insert the words
within twelve months after the date of the passing of this Act.
This is a very important Amendment to the wagon owners. The trade of the wagon owners has already suffered considerably from the uncertainty caused by the introduction of this Bill. It is most important that this uncertainty should be removed. The Minister-designate has pointed out to us in a very complete way the necessity of his acquiring these wagons; he has told us how good it is for the State and how necessary for him to have them in the conduct of the business. If that is so, he ought to tell us at once whether he is going to pay us now, or to
suspend the payment for an indefinite period. As matters stand, no one knows where he is. Are those concerned to renew their wagon-hire agreements? Are they to repair the buffers, the soles, heels, sides, or any portion of the wagons? Whose are the wagons? Are they theirs, or are they the State's? It is very unfair that £71,000,000 of property should be left in this suspended condition for an indefinite time, and I appeal to the Minister to tell us, so that we may know within twelve months what he is going to do, and so that we might protect our wagons and hand them over to him in decent and proper condition, knowing that we shall be paid for them. If matters stand as they are, what is the use of repairing the wagons at the cost of revenue, not knowing what is to become of them? The Minister did tell us he was prepared to come to a definite decision within a year. That being so, I think we may ask him to accept this Amendment.

Mr. REMER: I beg to second the Amendment.
There is now a very serious shortage of rolling stock. Nobody is giving orders for wagons or for the repair of existing wagons, and a very serious position is arising. There are wagon works which are almost standing still.

Sir E. GEDDES: I have every sympathy with the point put by the Mover of this Amendment. When originally I met the representative of the private wagon owners we agreed that in so far as wagons were to be acquired by the State they should be acquired all of a class, and I also agree that it was desirable, alike in the interests of the wagon owners and of the State, that this period of uncertainty should be brought to an end as quickly as possible. I undertook then that within twelve months the Ministry, if set up, would give notice of any wagons it intended to acquire at this stage. That is really very important. I will have to repeat myself a little to make the point clear. It would be quite impossible to undertake the setting up of machinery to deal with the whole of the wagons which are to be taken over if we are going to get the good results which I endeavoured to bring to the notice of the House—to set up that machinery in twelve months from the day this Bill became an Act. The whole of the repairing will have to be most carefully organised, because the position
in which wagons are working, the whole movement of the wagons, will gradually be on a different basis. Then again—and here I think the House will be entirely with me—there is practically nothing in the transportation of the country which is more likely to dislocate trade than carelessly or hurriedly to set up the machinery for distributing wagons, and seeing that the pits and works are kept supplied with rolling stock. That is a most difficult thing to organise. I have had some experience of it myself. I do not think it would be possible within twelve months satisfactorily to set up machinery throughout the country which would handle this enormous block of rolling stock and ensure that it would be properly regulated to places where loading and unloading could be carried out expeditiously. I could not undertake as a practical proposition to deal with it in twelve months. As to the point that we might give notice within twelve months of the wagons that we should require, I would be quite prepared to give that as an undertaking across the floor of the House, but it will be very hampering if that is put into the Bill, and for this reason: There are certain wagons, tarmac wagons, and acid wagons, and liquid fuel wagons, which to-day we have probably no intention of taking over, because the use of tarmac is not yet sufficiently great to justify it, but if tarmac becomes the only road material in general use, and if oil fuel is more generally used, there will be great advantage from the acquiring of these wagons. So that it would be a great misfortune if we were at this stage to undertake that we would purchase every kind within twelve months or give notice within twelve months. What we can do is to give an undertaking here that within twelve months at most we would give notice to the owners of our intention to acquire wagons at this stage. That will cover the best part of the wagons, but I deprecate the limiting of the powers of the State for taking over wagons to what we can do in twelve months.

Mr. NELSON: I quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman that twelve months is too short a time within which to make up his mind or within which to formulate a good policy, but surely it is not unreasonable that the policy should be formulated definitely within the two years which is the time allowed for the other provisions under the Bill. I feel that; there should be something of a definite
nature in the Bill, and if one year is too short, surely the two years already in the Bill could be applied to the privately-owned wagons and a definite policy could be made clear by that time.

Mr. J. W. WILSON: I think it is more a specified notice that is required for each class of wagon—say, six months, nine months, or twelve months—because from a trade point of view what the trader wants to know is whether his class of wagon is going to be taken over, and whether he, therefore, can cease placing orders for the renewal of wagons or the building of fresh wagons. I think that would accomplish the desire of the Mover of the Amendment and the object of the Minister in charge. He wants to keep his liberty to deal with each class of wagon as the public requirements need, and therefore he wants a permissive time; and the traders, on the other hand, want a time notice, that they shall know that their class of wagons is not going to be taken over within six months, or whatever the time may be, but that they should then know their wagons will be taken over. By dealing with one class of wagons at a time I think it would be very much better to have a specified notice, a period to be given in respect of each class, rather than trying to say that after the 1st July next no more wagons shall be purchased. It seems to me unpractical and unbusinesslike, even by way of word across the floor of the House. I dislike promises across the floor of the House, and I think it is much better to have pledges put into a Bill. Promises are nearly always misunderstood and misinterpreted in the future, and I think it would be better from all points of view if something definite were put in the Bill.

Colonel GRETTON: I rise to support what has been said by the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. I think he made a most valuable suggestion. This matter of taking over private wagons wants dealing with within a specified time. The supply of private wagons is of vast importance to the working of railways in this country as they are now organised, and if that supply is not kept up the railways in this country will suffer and the traffic will become difficult to move. Therefore this Amendment is of real importance. Apparently these powers which are now under discussion are intended to be prolonged beyond the period
of two years which has been mentioned. They are indefinite powers so far as duration is concerned, and we shall be in a very remarkable position in this country because of the fact that these powers will enable the Minister if he exercises them —and of course he intends to exercise them—to acquire a very large quantity of the rolling stock necessary to carry on the transport services of this country, and so far as that proposal is carried out they will proceed in the direction of the nationalisation of railways and prejudge the whole question. If at the end of the two years it has been decided that in the national interest it is not desirable to proceed with further Government control in the form of nationalisation, we shall have the Government of this country holding in their possession a very large proportion of the rolling stock necessary to work the railways, and when their decision is come to the Government will be in possession of this rolling stock and enabled to dispose of it as to how it shall be used or owned. That seems to me to be a very important situation. If the right hon. Gentleman is going to prolong his powers, as appears to be the case, beyond the two years, I think we ought to have some indication before we pass this Clause as to how he proposes to dispose of these railway wagons at the end of the two years if it is not decided that railways are to be nationalised. This question does arise on the acquisition of privately-owned wagons by the State, and it is important that this question should be decided at once both in the interests of the railway companies, to enable the owners of the railway wagons to know what they are to do with the railway wagons, and in the interests of the public, in order that there may be sufficient means of transport available.

Sir E. POLLOCK: I have endeavoured to meet the suggestion of my right hon. Friend (Mr. Wilson) that notice should be given, but I find it very difficult, and I have not been able to come to any conclusion satisfactory to my own mind, and I am therefore unable to offer a solution on those lines to the House. I want to mention this at once, because I have endeavoured to do it feeling that the right hon. Gentleman has offered a solution on which we might be enabled to pass on to something of greater moment, especially after my right hon. Friend the Minister-designate has given the undertaking which
he has given in the House. May I remind the House that, where the purchase takes place, it is to be on the
terms and conditions as may be authorised by or under an Order in Council, a draft whereof has been approved by a Resolution passed by both Houses of Parliament.
One sometimes focuses one's attention on the first or second line in the Clause and rather leaves out what is the general purport of the Clause, and it seems to me that, if we were to try and put in some Clause as giving notice, it would be very difficult to make it fit in with the rest of the Clause, which, after all, in itself carries with it the fact that there will be notice, because of the necessity of obtaining by Order in Council the authority to make a lawful purchase, and the Order in Council will lay down the terms and conditions which may be authorised. Do not let us forget that safeguard, and I hope, under those circumstances, now that my hon. Friend has received the statement he has from my right hon. Friend, he will be content to let the matter stand, remembering that this Order in Council will have to be brought in, and that very little would be added by giving notice. There are difficulties about giving notice, and to whom it shall be given, and so on, and I do not wish to commit myself to what I believe would be an inadequate solution.

Mr. J. W. WILSON: I thought the Order in Council would probably supplement this, and that the Minister would have the liberty to act or not act on that paricular Order in Council with regard to any particular class of wagon. If separate Orders in Council are contemplated for every separate class of wagons purchased, that is the notice we require, and I thought the Order in Council was simply an addendum to this, giving the Minister power in regard to whatever classes of wagons he chose to purchase.

Sir E. POLLOCK: It would specify the classes of wagons, but, as I read the Clause, it would be unnecessary to have a separate Order in Council in respect of a particular and every particular purchase. I think that really meets the point, and I hope my hon. Friend may see his way to withdraw the Amendment.

Sir J. HARMOOD-BANNER: There are two things I very much dislike: one is an Order in Council, and the other is an undertaking across the floor of the House,
but, after the very strong expression by the Minister-designate as to what his intentions are, I will ask leave to withdraw.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Sir E. POLLOCK: I beg to move, after Sub-section (2), to insert as a new Subsection
(3) Where the Minister has, in pursuance of his powers under this Section, purchased any wagon, any contract then in force for the repair of the wagon shall upon the purchase be determined unless otherwise agreed with the Minister.

Sir J. HARMOOD-BANNER: I think this requires some consideration, because there are many contracts made for the repair of wagons. It is rather a serious tiling to say that at once a contract which has been made for the repair of a wagon shall be determined, because the Minister has purchased it. It seems a great in justice that because there is an agreement between two parties, one who buys and the other who sells, the third party, the repairer, is to be damnified. I think we ought to have some explanation as to how the Minister is to look after this third party.

Mr. SCOTT: I want to reinforce the arguments of my hon. Friend very strongly indeed. The effect of the Clause as drawn would be that, supposing a wagon repairer has spent, say, £70 on the reconstruction of a wagon, and another £2 have to be spent in order to complete his contract, then, under this Sub-section, the wagon repairer would not get a penny of his £70. It would be a good defence in law, when suing for his money, for the owner to say, "It was not my fault. I did not carry out the contract. The contract was brought to an end by law." That cannot be the intention of the Government. It is obvious some remedy must be inserted, and I am certain the learned Solicitor-General will give us some intimation that the Government will do something in the matter.

Mr. ARMITAGE: I want to bring before the right hon. Gentleman the fact that repairers undertake repairs for a considerable term of years for a certain set of wagons. They on their side make their contracts for springs, tyres, axles, and so forth. All those contracts would remain, although the contracts for the repairing of the wagons would be determined by this. Act. I am sure there must be some mistake about that.

Sir E. POLLOCK: I have really no particular interest in this Sub-section. I understand, in view of what took place in Committee upstairs, and in view of what I understood was put before the right hon. Gentleman by the repairers of wagons, that this Sub-section was what was needed. But I am perfectly willing to withdraw it if it does not meet the need for which it was drawn. As I understand the Clause the intention is that a contract for the repair of a wagon shall first be determined unless otherwise agreed with the Minister. One of the parties to the contract who has the duty of repairing the wagon would be in the position of having to go on continuing under the repairing contract which is made for some time, although the wagon has passed out of the possession, and is no longer the property, of the person with whom he made the contract. It was to put an end to that that this was framed, but I am perfectly willing to withdraw the Sub-section if it does not meet with general acceptance. I think my best course is to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Mr. NELSON: I hope the Government will not withdraw this Amendment. There was a very long Debate on this very point in Committee, and this Sub-section was drawn up to protect the interests of the wagon-repairers. They have long term contracts which were entered into. The Minister-designate has already told us that, instead of the wagons remaining where they are, they might be moved from one end of the country to the other. Obviously the repairing becomes more onerous under such circumstances. All that matter was fully gone into, and it was only after very serious Debate that the Minister inserted this Clause. I, therefore, hope, in view of what has taken place, there will be no question of withdrawing this Amendment, which was to meet what would be a very real hardship.

Mr. SCOTT: On the application for leave to withdraw, may I remind the hon. and learned Gentleman that the purchase by the Minister under the compulsory powers of the Bill would have the same effect in common law as by the express law on the Paper, and what is wanted is not to withdraw this Clause but to add to it. Either under common or express law the effect of compulsory purchase will bring to an end the contract by the repairer of the wagons purchased. Under these circumstances it is essential that
some fair and just pecuniary position should be established between the owner of the wagon and the repairer of the wagon. I suggest that if the Clause is left as it stands, and not withdrawn, it should be on an undertaking by the Government that in the Lords they will bring up words to make the position clear and to put into the Bill a provision that is really fair, otherwise great injustice may be done.

Sir E. POLLOCK: I understood from my hon. Friend that this was an agreed Clause put in with an endeavour to meet a difficulty felt in Committee, and one which the Government wished fairly to meet. Coming here, as I do, without any prejudice, not having been present at the Committee, looking at the matter from the point of view of a detached spectator, and finding the Clause here with no friends, no supporters, it appeared to me that in the interests of the time of the House the best policy was to withdraw. At the same time I quite agree with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Exchange Division in his suggestion as to amending the Clause rather than withdrawing it. I am quite sure he is right in his criticism. Perhaps the House had better refuse me leave to withdraw or, on the other hand, if the House insists upon the Amendment going into the Bill, then my hon. and learned Friend's course might be adopted, for we should be sorry, after what has been said as to what happened in Committee, to think that we had in any way abandoned the position which we are endeavouring to carry out by this Clause.

Mr. NELSON: The wording of this Clause was agreed to, at the time of the discussion.

Sir E. POLLOCK: I thank my hon. Friend very much indeed. If it is an agreed Clause, perhaps, instead of withdrawing the Clause, the House had better accept it.

Sir W. RAEBURN: This Clause was agreed to upstairs, and I shall be very sorry if it is withdrawn. We had not, however, the services of an eminent luminary like the hon. Gentleman beside me (Mr. Scott). If we had had, we should have had something such as he has suggested; otherwise an injustice will be done. I hope the Government will improve the wording by the suggestions thrown out by the hon. and learned Member.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. INSKIP: I beg to move, in Subsection (3), to leave out the word "limiting" ["or of prohibiting, limiting, or restricting the use of"].
The object is to make quite clear to the House and the Minister the position with regard to prohibition. The powers of the Minister appear to be contained in Subsection (4), which says:
It shall be lawful for the Minister to make regulations prohibiting the use on railways of privately-owned wagons or limiting or restricting the number of wagons to be so used. ….
I understand that to mean that the Minister has to have power to prohibit either altogether privately-owned wagons, or to say that only a certain number may be used, but he has no power to say that the privately-owned wagon is to be used only within a particular radius or for a particular trade. The importance of this is in the proviso which says:
Nothing in this Act shall authorise the prohibition of the use on the railways of such wagons as comply with the regulations for the time being in force.
In order to make the matter clear, I propose to leave out the word "limiting" in Sub-section (3), where it appears to be mere surplus age. Later I shall propose to move to make other Amendments to make it quite plain that the wagons which are now in use under the statutory Regulations are free to be used in precisely the same manner as they are now, subject, of course, to the power of the Ministry to purchase.

Mr. ARMITAGE: I beg to second the Amendment.

Sir E. POLLOCE: I think what my hon. and learned Friend proposes to do makes the text of the Bill both clearer and more perfect. As my hon. Friend has undertaken kindly to explain what he means when he comes to a later Amendment we need not discuss this matter more, but I accept the Amendment in respect of the word "limiting."

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. Whitley): I think that covers a manuscript Amendment handed in by the hon. Member for Nottingham on the same question. Does the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Liverpool deal with a fresh point?

Mr. SCOTT: Yes, Sir. I consulted Mr. Speaker about it, and he agreed that it was a definitely different point to the one which the House has just discussed.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Then perhaps the hon. Gentleman will move it.

Mr. SCOTT: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (3, a), to insert the words:
and it shall be the duty of the Minister to afford such facilities, and the power of the Railway and Canal Commission to award damages under Section twelve of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1888, and any provision amending the same, shall include power to award the whole of any loss resulting to such trader from the neglect or default of the Minister to afford such facilities.
The object of the Amendment is to meet the difficulties which are likely to arise in practice from traders of certain classes not getting a regular supply of wagons to meet their needs. As the Bill stands there is a provision in the Clause we are discussing, Sub-section (3), paragraph (a), which says:
(a) The reasonable facilities which every railway company is required to afford under Section 2 of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1864, … shall … include the provision of suitable railway wagons. …
That is not enough to meet the whole case, and for two reasons: The first reason is that under the Clause the Minister himself may work the wagons, for in Subsection (1) it says:
It shall be lawful for the Minister to purchase. …
and a little further down it says:
and to work or lease any such wagons when so purchased.
He may work them himself on the railway which is in 'his possession, though it is worked by the railway company. He may also ask them whether he is setting up a new railway service of his own. Under Clause 8, in neither of those two cases does he come under any liability at all to the private trader whose needs they may fail to meet. The other case is where he hands the working of the wagons over to the railway company, and, therefore, the supply of the wagons is a facility within the meaning of Clause 3 a. Although the duty of providing the facilities in the way of wagons is cast by Sub-section (3) upon the railway companies, I think lawyers in the House will agree that if in any individual case they were unable to supply wagons on a particular day to a particular colliery for instance, and the reason was that the Minister had given the direction under Clause 3, which he can do as to the use of wagons on the railways, so that they have all gone somewhere else to deal with some other type of traffic, it would be a good defence for the railway com-
pany to say they have not had the wagons to supply. What the traders want is some impartial tribunal to which they can go when there is a dispute. If the public need was such as to send the wagons elsewhere, that is a good answer. If the public need was not such, and they had gone away pursuant to some order given possibly by mistake by some official, there the trader ought to have a remedy. In the case of a colliery company or a blast furnace, the failure to supply wagons would be vitally serious. Under these circumstances, a colliery may be held up and stop work, and in the case of a blast furnace, through want of the supply of ore in wagons, it might stop working.

Sir E. POLLOCK: On a point of Order. I wish to ask whether there was not an Amendment in your hands, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, for inserting the words "or of limiting the number of wagons to be so used," which related to Sub-section (3). Perhaps it is necessary now to go back to that Amendment, because it was intended to insert those words after we had left out the word "limiting."

Mr. INSKIP: My hon. Friend indicated to me that he had no desire to move that particular Amendment, and I informed you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, of his desire not to move it.

9.0 P.M.

Sir E. POLLOCK: When I accepted the omission of the word "limiting" 'it was because I understood this other Amendment was going to be moved, the effect of which was to take out the word "limiting" and to insert the words I have mentioned. I hope those words will be put in as a drafting Amendment.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I confess I am in some difficulty. I had not that Amendment in the name of the Government, but in the name of the hon. Member for Sheffield. That was the reason I referred to it, and I thought it was superseded by the Amendment that has just been accepted. If that is not so, the Government are entitled to move before we proceed with the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Liverpool (Mr. Scott).

Sir E. POLLOCK: I hope the hon. Member for Bristol will move it, because it is unfortunate to accept an Amendment
in the belief that at any rate one of my hon. Friends would have moved his second Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. INSKIP: I shall be very glad to move the addition of those words if it will get the right hon. Gentleman out of a difficulty, although I do not think they are necessary. I beg to move, in Sub-section (3), after the word "wagons" ["use of privately-owned wagons"], to insert the words
or of limiting the number of wagons to be so used.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. SCOTT: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (3, a), to insert the words
 "and it shall be the duty of the Minister to afford such, facilities, and the power of the Railway and Canal Commission to award damages under Section twelve of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1888, and any provision amending the same, shall include power to award the whole of any loss resulting to such trader from the neglect or default of the Minister to afford such facilities.
I was just saying when I was interrupted that there were two occasions where it was essential there should be in the case of the ordinary trader the right of getting some remedy for the non-supply of wagons, and the very fact, as the Minister-designate told the House, that he contemplates altering and standardising the type of wagon which is to be used in the future makes it vitally important that there should be such a remedy. In the process of changing over many concerns will be unable to make the new wagons until they have made alterations in their own premises, and that applies to a very great number of different concerns at present using wagons, and if there is going to be a serious deficiency of the old existing type of wagons during the process of the change over in the next year or two, when we want trade revived, there would be the greatest possible obstacle in the way. The only effective remedy is to give the individual who supplies the wagons a power of redress. That is the only way in which we shall keep the Government Department up to the scratch. We cannot do it here by asking whether he has done this or that all over the country, and the only person who can do it effectively is the individual trader, and this gives him the right,to get money damages in some Court which would deal with the question fairly and intelligently. The suggestion of my Amendment is the
Railway and Canal Commission Court, which is accustomed to these questions, and it realises the kind of considerations that have to guide them in arriving at their decisions. I want to quote an answer given by Mr. Joseph Shaw, the chairman of a large colliery company in Wales, who represents the export trade in South Wales, as to his experience in Germany of the Prussian State railways in this matter. Where you have ownership of wagons taken over by the State there is a great danger of grave scandals unless the remedy is effective. Ho says:
I have been out in Westphalia, and I know it very well. I have been in Germany very often, and absolutely the language of the German coalowners about the State handling of the trucks has been indescribable. I have seen collieries in Germany, and works standing idle, because the German State railways have not wagons to give them. In 1913 the Prussian State admitted that they would have to spend £3,000,000 sterling at once, and £20,000,000 sterling in all, to provide proper facilities for the trade.
We must face the possibility of very serious irregularities in supply. In regard to the coal wagons of this country, let me give two or three illustrations where the supply is inadequate. First of all, the colliery may be stopped altogether. Secondly, the industrial customer, the manufacturer, to whom the coal is going in this country, may be stopped altogether if he has not got the coal because of the wagons not coming; and, thirdly, at all the ports ships may be held up because the coal is not down at the time at which the ship is ready. In all these cases the consequential loss is very heavy, and I submit that the only sensible remedy is to say that the person who suffers the loss shall have a right to damages. At present all he has a right to is in effect a claim in grace, so that the Minister can give him something if he thinks he will. This evening, on another Amendment, the Minister - designate admitted to us that the Department must give suitable wagons to the various under takings that require them—suitable to the particular needs of the undertaking; and he said, "We admit a duty to do this." The Government admits the duty, but the duty is not in the Act of Parliament, and it ought to be there in plain words. For these reasons, I move the Amendment. As to the form of the Amendment, I am not very particular. It may be that the right way to put it would be:
It shall be the duty of the Minister or of the railway company working such wagons, as the case may be, to afford such facilities,
and at the end of the sentence, instead of "shall include power," to say,
shall extend to any neglect or default in respect of such facilities.
I do not know whether this wording would meet with the approval of the Government and their draftsmen. If so, I am quite willing to move the Amendment in that form. For the moment I move it as it stands on the Paper.

Mr. STEVENS: I beg to second the Amendment.
It is only a question of finding a Court of appeal from the Ministry. If you go to other countries where the railways are nationalised, you always find there a Court of appeal from the Government, and also where the railways are privately owned. In our case, for instance, there are the Railway and Canal Commissioners. In the United States they have the Inter-State Congress Commission, and there is a somewhat similar Commission in Canada. In Australia, where the railways are owned by the Government, there is an appeal to another branch of the Government. It is essential that there should be some practical appeal from the Minister in respect of his action in the administration of the railways.

Mr. R. RICHARDSON: I should like to ask if this would include the loss to the workers? We know that often under private enterprise days have been lost, not because of lack of trade, but because of lack of wagons. I should like the hon. and learned Gentleman to give us an undertaking that the worker who loses in wages will be included.

Sir E. POLLOCK: The hon. and learned Member who moved this Amendment has, I think, indicated that the point is one that has to be met, although I do not go quite so far as he goes. I think he puts it too high. I have explained what I understand the problem to be, and I venture to make a suggestion. As the hon. and learned Gentleman points out, there is power under Sub-section (1) for the Minister to work or lease any such wagons or to apportion them amongst the several railway undertakings—that is to say, he can either work them himself or lease them or apportion them among the several railway undertakings in such manner and on such terms and subject to such conditions as may be provided by or under the Order—
that is to say, the Order in Council. If he apportions them he would have to do it, under the Order in Council, on fair terms, having regard to the facilties required by the railways to whom he apportions any particular number of them. There is no doubt that adequate facilties, so far as the wagons went, would be provided, because the Order in Council would never be accepted unless the terms and conditions laid down in it were fair; so that I do not think hon. Members need have any misgivings as to whether or not, if the wagons were apportioned among the various railway undertakings, difficulties would arise. They would themselves have an opportunity hereafter of controlling and preventing any difficulties. My hon. and learned Friend calls attention to the fact that, if the Minister himself works the wagons, the point is not covered, and I am inclined to agree with him. He has made a suggestion in his Amendment that we should meet it in a particular way. I have grave difficulty in accepting that Amendment, because in its terms it imposes a liability which is even greater than the liability imposed, as I read the words, under Section 12 of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act. I need not bother the House with what perhaps might be a subtle legal argument, but under Section 12 of that Act a certain measure of damage is given, and in choosing different words I think my hon. and learned Friend is giving an increased liability to damages. That would be unsatisfactory. He says that he is not wedded to the words, and lie read out some other words which to my mind, as my ear caught them, seemed far more acceptable. But may I plead a certain amount of human frailty? I find it very difficult to make up one's mind that the words read out in the House adequately meet a point which needs some consideration, and which obviously may have many difficulties, and I am going to suggest to him that, if he will let me consider the alternative Amendment which he proposes, I will undertake that in another place this matter shall be considered, and that we will deal with the Amendment he has suggested and try and find some method of covering the loophole which he has indicated.

Mr. SCOTT: On the understanding that the Government will move an Amendment
in another place to deal with the points I have raised, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The next Amendment on the Paper is the second Amendment of the hon. Member for Bristol. I have, however, a manuscript Amendment handed in by the hon. Member for the Hillsborough Division of Sheffield on the same point, but I am not quite clear whether he wishes to move it.

Mr. NEAL: I do not propose to move my Amendment.

Mr. INSKIP: I understand that this is an Amendment which the learned Solicitor-General desires shall be moved. Although it is not really my child, I am quite prepared to adopt it for this purpose, and accordingly I beg to move, in Sub-section (4), after the word "prohibiting" ["to make regulations prohibiting the use on railways''], to insert the words "or restricting." I think, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, those are the words of the Amendment to which you referred.

Sir E. POLLOCK: I understood my hon. Friend was proposing to leave out the words "or limiting." Am I not right?

Mr. INSKIP: Yes; but I am only moving this to meet the convenience of the hon. and learned Gentleman. I do not wish to move it if he does not desire.

Sir E. POLLOCK: I think the first Amendment of the hon. Member is in its proper sequence.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. INSKIP: I beg next to move, in the same Sub-section, to leave out the words "or limiting." This is merely consequential.

Sir E. POLLOCK: I think we are getting into some difficulty as to the difference between the words "restricting" and "limiting." I understood that the word "limiting" was to be left out, and the Section should run in this form:
Notwithstanding any statutory or other provision to the contrary, it shall be lawful for the Minister to make regulations prohibiting or restricting the use on railways of privately-owned wagons or restricting the number of wagons to be so used and prescribing the type and capacity thereof.
What is wanted to be left out are the words "or restricting," which now appear in the Sub-section, after the word "limiting."

Mr. INSKIP: It is not a very important point. We have left out the words "or limiting" in Sub-section (3), and I thought it would follow that we should leave out the same words in this Sub-clause.

Sir E. POLLOCK: I am only trying to meet the suggestion of the hon. Member.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: I beg to move, in the same Sub-section, after the word "thereof" ["type and capacity thereof"] to insert the words
Provided that every regulation so made shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament as soon as may be after it is made, and if an Address is presented by either House, within twenty-one days from the date on which that House has sat next after any such regulation is laid before it, praying that the regulation may lie annulled, His Majesty m Council may annul the regulation but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done there under.
The object of this Amendment is to give this House an opportunity of reviewing any Regulations which may be made by the Minister-designate under this Section. I do not move this Amendment with any idea at all of making the work of my right hon. Friend in any way more difficult, or with any obstructive purpose in regard to the Bill, but I do attach the very greatest importance to it, although on the face of it it may seem to be rather modest. During the last few years the Executive has been issuing more and more Orders in Council and more and more Regulations. This really means that gradually the control of Parliament "is being largely lost over the administration. I did not object to that while the War was going on. It was impossible then not to give the Executive a great deal additional power. But now the War is over and we have once more peace, Parliament should do its utmost to recover the control which during the War it has very largely lost. This is really a question for all parties in the House. It is just as much a question for hon. Members belonging to the Labour party as it is for those belonging to the Conservative or Liberal parties. If this practice goes on of issuing Regulations, which never come before this House, I suggest we might just as well abrogate our rights as Members of Parliament. I dare say the Minister-designate or the learned Solicitor-General will say that the Regulations which they will issue will be very technical and very numerous. But I am proposing no new thing. I am acting strictly on precedent.
Perhaps hon. Members may remember that when the National Insurance Act was going through it gave the Minister who was in charge of the Act power to issue Regulations in regard to health insurance. Those Regulations have been extremely technical and exceedingly numerous. But when that Act was going through it was not left to a private Member to suggest that the Regulations should be placed before the House. The right hon. Gentleman who was in charge of the Debate at the moment, the present Lord Chief Justice, himself suggested that every single Regulation issued under the national health part of the Insurance Act should be placed before both Houses of Parliament, and that hon. Members should have an opportunity of reviewing them. I have the words here put in with that object. Again, in the case of unemployment insurance, exactly the same thing was done. The Government on their own initiative decided that all Regulations that were issued under the Unemployment part of the Act should go before both Houses of Parliament, so that hon. Members might have an opportunity of reviewing them. And it was not a waste of time doing this, because although I have not been in the House very long—only ten years—yet during that time I can quite well remember several occasions on which hon. Members who have disliked certain Regulations that have been laid on the Table, have brought the matter up for debate after eleven o'clock at night and have persuaded the Government to amend them in certain instances. I remember when we were dealing with the question of arrears of contributions. That was provided for in the Regulations laid on the Table of the House and hon. Members who were interested in the question used the opportunity late at night to review it. There is another precedent I may mention, upstairs in Committee on the Housing Bill. Hon Members will remember that on two occasions, in regard to the first part of the Rill dealing with loans to local authorities and in regard to the second part of the Bill dealing with money to be issued to public utility societies—on both these occasions special provisions were put in that the Regulations should be placed before both Houses of Parliament. I venture to copy the exact words of the proviso adopted in Committee on the Housing Bill. This Amendment, which I hope the right hon.
Gentleman will accept, will lead to no delay whatsoever, because in the latter part of it it is provided that His Majesty may annul the Regulation but without prejudice to the validity of anything previous done thereunder. Therefore the right hon. Gentleman can issue the Regulation straight away and what is to be done under it can be done straight away, and if afterwards it is annulled that will be done without any prejudice to anything done previously. I attach very great importance to this Amendment, which will give hon. Members an opportunity of reviewing the Regulations and altering or amending them if they think fit to do so.

Colonel GRETTON: I beg to second the Amendment. I think it is one of great importance. If the House thinks within the twenty-one days that the matter is one that ought to be discussed and one as to which the Government ought to give an explanation, the House ought to be able to do so. Nothing can create an atmosphere less favourable to the purposes of the Bill than any mystery or secrecy as to its proceedings. I think all regulations of this kind should be made as public and as widespread as possible, and ought to be laid on the Table of the House. It is very seldom, perhaps too seldom, that the House exercises its rights and opportunities in these matters.

Sir E. POLLOCK: I am far from suggesting that this is not an important Amendment, and that it would not have a very considerable result. I would be the last person to suggest that an Amendment which provides that the Regulations shall be laid in both Houses of Parliament would not have some effect. I regard the laying of Regulations as an important safeguard in certain circumstances, but I am sorry to say I am unable to accept this Amendment and I will tell the House why. The Amendment is placed in between two provisions at the end of this Clause. The Sub-section in which it is sought to introduce this proviso states that
Notwithstanding any statutory or other provision to the contrary it shall be lawful for the Minister to make regulations prohibiting the use on railways of privately-owned wagons, or limiting or restricting the number of wagons to be so used.
In the earlier part of this Clause we have given power to the Minister to purchase privately-owned wagons, and it has been made perfectly plain that an endeavour
is to be made to have the provision of suitable wagons largely capable of rendering the services required of them, and, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, which at the present time so small a percentage are capable of rendering. It is with that view and in that interest that the Minister has been empowered to purchase privately-owned wagons. If the effect of purchasing was only that those who had previously owned the wagons might immediately build more or purchase them elsewhere, then that would defeat the very purpose for which the earlier part of the Clause provides. Therefore you must give power to the Minister to make Regulations which shall carry out the powers with which he is entrusted. My hon. Friend who moved referred to the last part of the Amendment, providing that the Regulations may be annulled without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done thereunder. In fact, he says, the matter will not be delayed at all, and that we can make the Regulations and go on under them, and Parliament may then come and annul it. But, in that case, what is going to be the position of the Minister or of the private owner who finds himself ordered to do certain things by the Minister under a Regulation the validity of which is questioned and which is finally annulled. My hon. Friend suggested that this last portion of his Amendment was the best portion of it, but it is the very part which I fear most. If we are to have a proviso, do not let us put words into it which make it possible to act under a Regulation which Parliament may determine to be invalid. By doing so you would create a situation most unfair not only to the Minister, but to the owners of wagons.

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: In what way would it be more unfair than the similar proviso placed in other Acts of Parliament?

Sir E. POLLOCK: I should like to study those, to see what the present view of those provisions is. But this Amendment does not stop there. It would bring these Regulations within the Rules Publication Act of 1893. The result is—this is the most unfortunate part of it—that notice has to be given before the rules are made and representations can be made by public bodies in respect of these rules. Therefore it is not merely the time that is laid down in this particular proviso that is in question. My hon. Friend has chosen words which bring this ease within the
Rules Publication Act, an Act of which I hope he has never heard. I do not imagine that in his lighter moments he has selected it for study. If he has ever stumbled across that Act, he will find that the effect of this Amendment is to make it necessary to give forty days' notice after the rules are made, and then to give an opportunity for representations to be made. If this proviso were put into the Bill it would hamper the Minister; it would delay matters very considerably, and all for what? All in order to prevent the powers being exercised under which the Minister is entitled to make Regulations preventing an increase of privately-owned wagons which the House has already given him power to own and deal with centrally. This power is necessary merely as a correlative to the power to which the House has already assented. Having regard to these circumstances, I hope my hon. Friend will accept the observations I have made and not press the Amendment.

Mr. NEAL: I do not think T shall be suspected of desiring to do anything which would limit improperly the powers of the Minister under this Bill if it becomes an Act, but I suggest that the answer of the Solicitor-General does not cover the whole ground. Clause 10 as it stands at present is a permissive Clause. It gives power to the Minister to purchase; it does not compel him to purchase. Some of us hope that he will endavour to find some other means of obtaining the necessary control without committing the State to an expenditure which may run to £70,000,000 or more, the effect of which would be that, having purchased the wagons, at the end of the experimental period of two years he would be in a position of being the owner of a large number of wagons, nationalised wagons it may be without having nationalised railways. The effect of that would necessarily be that we should either be in the anomalous position of the Government owning wagons running on private railways, or he would have to dispose of them in some way to the railway companies. Supposing the Minister should determine to delay the purchase of the wagons, the power he is now asking for gives him extraordinary facilities. Under this Clause he might, on the day after the Royal Assent is given to this Bill, prohibit absolutely by Regulations the use of any privately-owned wagons on
railways. He could bring forward Regulations, and under those Regulations— making the Regulations is the statutory way, if they come within the rules, of which I am not quite sure—he could at once prohibit the use of the wagons, or restrict the number of them, or prescribe their type and capacity. Then follows another proviso which is extremely difficult to interpret in the light of this provision. It says,
Nothing in this Act"—
I do not know whether that is meant to mean nothing in the Regulations made under this Bill—
shall authorise the prohibition of the use of railways of such wagons as comply with regulations for the time being in force made in pursuance of the Hallways Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845, or any other enactment in force at the date of the passing of this Act and as are in use, under repair, or in course of construction at that date.
I confess I do not see how the two can be road together. All wagons now running, I suppose, are presumed to be within these statutory powers. But the House must assume that only a very small portion, if any, fail to meet the present position. If the Clause under discussion has any meaning, it means that by Regulation the Minister may prohibit those that are now running. If that is the meaning, it is difficult to understand what is the precise object of the proviso. The main point I rose to make is that the powers of purchase may never become operative. They can only become operative by the assent of this House to certain terms and conditions to be laid before it. The House might not accept the terms and conditions which the Government propose. Suppose the power to purchase for any reason becomes a dead letter, what, then, is the fall effect of the power which the Minister is seeking in this Clause to prohibit or restrict the use of wagons on any railway?

Sir E. POLLOCK: The hon. Member has made a very useful speech and pointed out what at first sight is a difficulty. This proviso is meant to cover this case: There is a certain number of wagons in respect of which the railway company can lay down regulations with which those wagons must comply. Their size and equipment can all be laid down by regulations which, if made and imposed upon their private owners, have also to be complied with in respect of their rolling stock by the railway company which imposes those regulations. There will be at the passing of
this Bill a very large number of wagons which have been built in conformity with and obedience to the regulations which have been imposed upon private owners under the powers of the Railways Clauses Consolidation Act. In respect of those, we may say that the owner of the wagons has gone to a considerable amount of expense and has certainly shown his desire to accommodate and satisfy the railway company. In respect of these, there is no authority to prohibit their use on the railways. That refers to such
as are in use, under repair, or in course of construction at that date.
If they are dealt with otherwise than exists at present, the Minister must buy them. If he has not, therefore, the limiting power to prohibit the use, and if he wishes to get control of them, he must buy them outright. That is the plain meaning of the proviso, which, on its face, is not very plain. It is perfectly clear that what the hon. Member (Mr. Neal) feared cannot take place. He said there was nothing to prevent an immediate regulation being made by the Minister prohibiting the use on railways of privately-owned wagons. There is a good deal to prohibit it by the very circumstances of the case. In the first place, there arc a number of wagons which the Minister cannot get control of unless he buys them, and he will not be able to buy them unless ho complies with conditions which will involve a considerable lapse of time Under the circumstances there must be a large number of wagons the use of which cannot be prevented, and the Minister will not have the autocratic power which the hon. Member at first sight thought ho would have, and in respect of which he, not unnaturally, felt uneasiness and misgiving. I hope the hon. Gentleman will not persist in his Amendment.

Mr. LOCKER-LAMPSON: I am not at all satisfied with the hon. and learned Gentleman's reply. He has not in the least answered the point I made—that every single regulation issued by the National Insurance Act and every single regulation that is going to be issued under the Housing Bill is going to be subjected to exactly the same conditions as I am asking for. I am not referring merely to the right hon. Gentleman, but to the Transport Minister, whoever he may be, to-day or twenty years hence, and I do not see why you should treat the Transport Minister better in this respect than you
treat any other Minister. We are allowing Parliamentary control to slip from us. If we allow these regulations to be made without Parliamentary control, we might just as well give up our duties as Members of Parliament. I feel very strongly about the Amendment. I have not opened my mouth on the Bill up till now, and I do not intend to open it on the Bill any more, but I feel very strongly on this Amendment, and I shall certainly divide the House.

Sir F. HALL: We had a great many discussions in Committee with regard to the purchase of wagons, and it was only after many difficulties were overcome that we finally agreed to the Bill being presented to the House as it is at present. I cannot for the life of me see why the difficulty has been raised. I do not know anything about the Act of 1890 to which the hon. and learned Gentleman referred. The general knowledge of the House of Commons is good enough for me. The right hon. Gentleman has very bureaucratic powers. He has greater powers conferred upon him than any Minister has ever asked for or received. Surely if there is any question with regard to the purchase of wagons, which might amount to anything up to £100,000,000, it is necessary for those matters to be gone into. The sense of the House should be taken, and if the House is of opinion that it is not advisable to carry out certain proposals which may be made by any right hon. Gentleman who is to be Minister of Ways and Communications it is necessary that we should take powers which will enable us to rectify any mistake which may be found in the future. Any hon. Member who has sat in the House for a reasonable period would come to the conclusion that, whatever may be the opinion outside, the House of Commons, as a rule, adds up and subtracts. It comes to its decision after careful consideration, and I do not think any Minister ought to be wishful in any way of limiting the powers of the House of Commons. I trust my hon. Friend will go to a Division, and I shall certainly support him.

Major MOLSON: I wish to support this very strongly also. We have really had enough examples of Orders in Council recently, and it is perfectly reasonable to ask that the same regulations should control this most extensive Bill as control the Ministry of Health and other Bills.

Question put, "That the words,
Provided that every regulation so made shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament as soon as may be after it is made, and if an Address is presented by either House, within twenty-one days from the date on which that House has sat next after any such regulation is laid before it, praying that the regulation may

be annulled, His Majesty in Council may annul the regulation but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done thereunder'

be there inserted in the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 60; Noes, 183.

Division No. 60.]
AYES.
[9.52 p.m.


Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte
Haslam, Lewis
Remer, J. B.


Ainsworth, Captain C.
Hickman, Brig.-Gen. Thomas E.
Renwick, G.


Allen, Col. William James
Hogge, J. M.
Rose, Frank H.


Armitage, Robert
Inskip, T. W. H.
Roundell, Lieutenant-Colonel R. F.


Atkey, A. R.
Jones, William Kennedy (Hornsey)
Royden, Sir Thomas


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Joynson-Hicks, William
Samuel, A. M. (Farnham, Surrey)


Bell, Lieut.-Col. W. C. H. (Devizes)
Kenworthy, Lieut.-Commander
Samuel, S (Wandsworth, Putney)


Benn, Com. Ian Hamilton (G'nwich)
Kiley, James Daniel
Scott, Leslie (Liverpool, Exchange)


Birchall, Major J. D.
Lorden, John William
Smithers, Alfred W.


Brown, Captain D. C. (Hexham)
Lynn, R. J.
Steel, Major S. Strang


Burn, Colonel C. R. (Torquay)
M'Laren, R. (Lanark, N.)
Stevens, Marshall


Campion, Col. W. R.
Mitchell, William Lane-
White, Charles F. (Derby, W.)


Cayzer, Major H. R.
Murray, Dr. D. (Western Isles)
Williams, A. (Consett, Durham)


Cooper, Sir Richard Ashmole
Murray, William (Dumfries)
Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough)


Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)
Neal, Arthur
Willoughby, Lt.-Col. Hon. Claud


Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington)
Newman, Major J. (Finchley, Mddx.)
Wilson-Fox, Henry


Entwistle, Major C. F.
Perring, William George
Young, Sir F. W. (Swindon)


Gretton, Colonel John
Pownall, Lieut.-Colonel Assheton
Young, Robert (Newton, Lancs.)


Gritten, W. G. Howard
Prescott, Major W. H.



Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir Fred. (Dulwich)
Raeburn, Sir William
TELLERS FOR THE AYES,—Mr. G.


Hancock, John George
Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel
Locker-Lampson and Major Molson.


NOES.


Acland, Rt. Hon. Francis Dyke
Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
Jodrell, N. P.


Adair, Rear-Admiral
Dawes, J. A.
Johnson, L. S.


Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher
Dockrell, Sir M
Jones, sir Evan (Pembroke)


Amery, Lieut.-Col. L. C. M. S.
Edge, Captain William
Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)


Arnold, Sydney
Edwards, C. (Bedwelty)
Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen)


Baird, John Lawrence
Elliot, Capt. W. E. (Lanark)
Kellaway, Frederick George


Baldwin, Stanley
Eyres-Monsell, Commander
King, Com. Douglas


Barlow, Sir Montague (Salford, S.)
Fell, Sir Arthur
Lane-Fox, Major G. R.


Barnes, Rt. Hon. G. N. (Gorbals)
Fisher, Rt. Hon. Herbert A. L.
Law, Right Hon. A. Bonar (Glasgow)


Barnes, Major H. (Newcastle, E.)
FitzRoy, Capt. Hon. Edward A.
Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ. Wales)


Barnett, Captain Richard W,
Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue
Lloyd, George Butler


Barnston, Major Harry
Foreman, H.
Loseby, Captain C. E.


Bell, James (Ormskirk)
Forster, Rt. Hon. H. W.
Lunn, William


Benn, Sir Arthur S. (Plymouth)
Fraser, Major Sir Keith
M'Curdy, Charles Albert


Bigland, Alfred
Galbraith, Samuel
Mackinder, Halford J.


Blades, Sir George R.
Gange, E. S.
MacVeagh, Jeremiah


Blane, T. A.
Gardiner, J. (Perth)
Mallalieu, Frederick William


Borwick, Major G.O.
Geddes, Rt. Hon. Sir E. (Cambridge)
Malone, Major P. (Tottenham, S.)


Bowyer, Captain G. W. E.
Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham
Marks, Sir George Croydon


Bramsden, Sir T.
Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel John
Mason, Robert


Breese, Major C. E.
Goff, Sir R. Park
Moles, Thomas


Bridgeman, William Clive
Gray, Major E.
Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred Moritz


Buchanan, Lieut.-Col. A. L. H.
Green, J. F. (Leicester)
Moore-Brabazon, Lt.-Col. J. C. T.


Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Gregory, Holman
Morgan, Major D. Watts


Burdon, Col. Rowland
Greig, Colonel James William
Morison, T. B. (Inverness)


Campbell, J. G. D.
Grundy, T. W.
Mosley, Oswald


Carr, W. T.
Guinness, Lt.-Cot. Hon. W. E. (B. St. E.)
Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert


Carter, W. (Mansfield)
Hacking, Captain D. H.
Murray, Hon. G. (St. Rollox)


Casey, T. W.
Hall, F. (Yorks, Normanton)
Nall, Major Joseph


Cautley, Henry Strother
Hambro, Angus Valdemar
Nelson, R. F. W. R.


Chadwick, R. Burton
Hamilton, Major C. G. C. (Altrincham)
Newbould, A. E.


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Birm.,W.)
Harris, Sir H. P. (Paddington, S.)
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. (Exeter).


Cheyne, Sir William Watson
Hartshorn, V.
O'Grady, James


Clay, Capt. H. H. Spender
Hayday, A.
Parry, Major Thomas Henry


Coates, Major Sir Edward F.
Hayward, Major Evan
Pease, Rt. Hon. Herbert Pike


Coats, Sir Stuart
Henry, Denis S. (Londonderry, S.)
Perkins, Walter Frank


Cobb, Sir Cyril 
Hilder, Lieut.-Colonel F.
Pinkham, Lieut.-Col. Charles


Colfox, Major W. P.
Hirst, G. H.
Pollock, Sir Ernest Murray


Colvin, Brigadier-General R. B.
Hoare, Lt.-Col. Sir Samuel J. G. 
Pratt, John William


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy 
Pulley, Charles Thornton


Coote, Colin R. (Isle Ely)
Hood, Joseph
Purchase, H. G.


Cope, Major W. (Glamorgan)
Hope, Harry (Stirling)
Raffan, Peter Wilson


Cory, Sir J. H. (Cardiff)
Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)
Rankin, Capt. James S.


Cowan, D. M. (Scottish University)
Hope, Lt.-Col. Sir J. (Midlothian)
Raw, Lieut.-Colonel Dr. N.


Cowan, Sir H. (Aberdeen and Kinc.)
Howard, Major S. G.
Rees, Sir J. D. (Nottingham, E.)


Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirk'dy) 
Hurd, P. A.
Reid, D. D.


Davidson, Major-Gen. Sir John H.
Jesson, C.
Richardson, R. (Houghton)


Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)
Sprot, Colonel Sir Alexander
Wigan, Brig.-General John Tyson


Robinson, T. (Stretford, Lanes.)
Stanley, Colonel Hon. G. F. (Preston)
Wignall, James


Rogers, Sir Hallewell
Stephenson, Colonel H. K.
Williams, Lt.-Com. C. (Tavistock)


Rowlands, James
Stewart, Gershom
Williams, Lt.-Col. Sir R. (Banbury)


Royce, William Stapleton
Strauss, Edward Anthony
Wills, Lt.-Col. Sir Gilbert Alan H.


Rutherford, Sir W, W. (Edge Hill)
Sturrock, J. Leng-
Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Stourbridge)


Sanders, Colonel Robert Arthur
Surtees, Brig.-General H. C.
Wilson, Colonel Leslie (Reading)


Seager, Sir William
Sutherland, Sir William
Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton)


Seddon, J. A.
Talbot, G. A. (Hemel Hempstead)
Winterton, Major Earl


Shaw, Hon. A. (Kilmarnock)
Taylor, J. (Dumbarton)
Wood, Major S. Hill- (High Peak)


Shaw, Tom (Preston)
Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton, E.)
Woolcock, W. J. U.


Shaw, Captain W. T. (Forfar)
Walker, Colonel William Hall
Yeo, Sir Allied William


Short, A. (Wednesbury)
Walters, Sir John Tudor



Smith, Capt. A. (Nelson and Colne)
Ward-Jackson, Major C. L.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Capt.


Smith, W. (Wellingborough)
Whitla, Sir William
F. Guest and Lord E. Talbot.


Question put, and agreed to.

Clause 11.—(Power to Discharge Capital Liabilities by Issue of Stock.)

Any capital sum payable under this Act for reduction in the value of an undertaking, or for the purchase of privately-owned railway wagons, may be discharged in whole or in part, if the Treasury so direct, by the issue of securities, and the amount of such securities equivalent to such capital sum shall, in default of agreement, be determined by the Railway and Canal Commission.

For that purpose the Treasury may create and issue securities, the interest on which shall, in the case of securities issued for the purchase of railway wagons, be charged on the revenues derived from the wagons so acquired, after the payment there out of working expenses, and if so and far as such revenues are insufficient, or wholly in the case of securities issued for discharging such capital sum as aforesaid, shall be charged en the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, or the growing produce thereof, and which shall bear interest at such rate and shall be subject to such conditions and regulations as to repayment, redemption, or otherwise as the Treasury may direct or prescribe, and the regulations may apply with the necessary modifications any or the enactments relating to local loans stock.

Sir E. GEDDES: I beg to move, after the word "wagons" ["privately-owned railway wagons"], to insert the words
or any interest therein.
This is intended to provide that where in. addition to the actual wagon-owner there is another person or a corporation which has an interest in the firm, and a charge upon the wagons, that charge maybe liquidated in securities at the time the wagons are acquired by the State. This Amendment is to meet a point, and I believe it does meet it, which was put to us by the wagon-owners when they said they would be in a very difficult position if die State acquired the wagons and gave their value in securities, but there was no statutory obligation upon those who had a financial interest in the wagons, as apart from the owner, to receive their interest in securities.

Sir J. HARMOOD-BANNER: I should like to know how this Amendment will affect the proviso that I desire to move. I
do not want to embarrass the Minister-designate on this question, but if he is dealing with debenture holders and others in this question I would like to know how-it is to be done. I have put down an Amendment to protect the wagon-owners both in respect of their liabilities and in respect of the cash to be received. My Amendment provides that the capital sum payable under this Act for the purpose of any privately-owned railway wagons shall not, unless the owners of the wagons consent, be discharged either in whole or in part by the issue of securities. I think that the wagon-owners have a right to be paid in cash for their wagons, especially in view of the fact that the ordinary business of wagon-owning is for the wagon-owner to build his wagons and obtain the purchase price from the hiring company or from his bankers. If he is not to be paid in cash he is placed in a very awkward position. If he is to be paid in War Loan as a part of a big security it might be one thing, but if he is to be paid, for instance, in a Wagon Loan, say, £30,000,000 or £40,000,000, to form a particular part of a separate security, that would not give him the means of paying off his creditors, either his banker or the hire company. Therefore, it is very important to know whether the Government are going to override us in taking these wagons and are going to decline to pay us in the ordinary way in bank notes or cash, and are only going to pay us in a security or the value of which we have no knowledge. If we are not paid in cash but only receive a security we cannot go to our debenture holders and say, "The Government has paid us not in cash, by which we could discharge our debentures, but in a security which is not readily saleable in the market." Our creditors may say, "We want cash for our debentures"; but the right hon. Gentleman says, "I am not going to give you cash. I am not going to consult yon: I am going to say that you must take this and
deal in your own way with your debenture holders." The first step towards nationalisation is that the Minister tells us in the most distinct way that he is going to take our wagons and that he is not going to pay us in cash, but m a security which we do not wish to accept. I shall not now move my proviso, having had an opportunity of putting my case, but I do not think that the House is adding to its credit by taking away people's property and not paying cash.

Mr. STEVENS: Supplementing what my hon. Friend has just said, the very lucid statement of the right hon. Gentleman to-night has simplified the whole position. I agree almost entirely with what he said. Under this Bill practically all the wagons are to be purchased, and we are face to face with an expenditure in cash of £70,000,000 for these wagons. I say in cash, because we were promised upstairs that in this provision we should have the advantage that if the owners of wagons did not want securities they should have cash. I feel quite sure that that provision will be adhered to. This brings us right down to the main question which I have been trying to get at. One has heard millions dealt with here as if they were sovereigns, and here is the position. We are face to face with this expenditure of £70,000,000, and if the House thinks it desirable, on the evidence before us, that these wagons should be purchased, let us face it now and purchase them, and not wait for Orders in Council to come up from time to time. Let us decide now that we will purchase the wagons, and for cash.

Mr. ARMITAGE: I am very glad that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is here, because this is a question of fairness, and the wagon owners should have an opportunity of being paid in cash. A great many Members do not realise the enormous wagon finance companies which there are in the North. When colliery companies are about to start working their coal they have to get large numbers of wagons. They have spent all their capital on sinking the shafts, and they go to the wagon finance companies for wagons. A great many millions are put into these companies. These companies work in this way. One company, for instance, has £1,000,000 capital, and it has issued £100,000. It has borrowed on three, five, and seven years' term deben-
tures on the uncalled capital, and it has also taken money upon deposit. These amounts run up to about £8,000,000 or £9,000,000. Under this Bill as it is, they will have to accept securities for all their wagons. They cannot pay off the debenture holders with the securities, because those securities are not based upon the wagons. They would at once have to put all these securities upon the market. It would only benefit the big London financiers who can buy up these millions of securities, and the wagon finance companies, whose shares are largely held by small people in the North, will lose all their capital, and they will have to pay up the uncalled capital. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer will look into the question he will see that a great hardship will be inflicted on many thousands of people in the North who have put their small savings into the finance companies. They are worked very much like the large building societies up there. They are worked upon very small margins. No one makes very large profits out of them. After they have been considered for years as a very sound security, I think that it is a very great hardship for these securities to be thrust upon them, and that then they should have to go and sell them on the market and lose their capital.

Amendment agreed to.

Sir J. HARMOOD-BANNER: I beg to move, after the word "Commission" ["be determined by the Railway and Canal Commission"], to insert the words
Provided that when the consideration for any wagons that are charged with the repayment of any money is discharged by the issue of securities it shall be lawful for the owner of the wagons to repay such money by the transfer of such securities of an amount equivalent to such money, and such transfer shall have the same effect as there payment of the money.
I think it is right we should have some assurance or proviso of that description, because although I rather understand that the Minister-designate considered that we were protected under this Amendment, I am bound to say I am advised that we are not so protected.

Mr. REMER: I beg to second the Amendment.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Chamberlain): My hon. Friend has put down two provisos which, I think, would carry out inconsistent policies. What the proviso he is now pro-
posing purported to do is done in a different way, as we are advised, by the Amendment which has already been moved by the Minister-designate and accepted by the House. The effect of my right hon. Friend's Amendment is that the Government would pay out the liability and pay the wagon-owners' share in the property.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Captain HAMILTON BENN: I beg to move, at the end, to add the words
Provided that the owner of any undertaking established by Act of Parliament shall not, except with their consent, be required to accept securities in lieu of cash in discharge of any sum payable to them for reduction in the value of their undertaking.
This Amendment is very similar to that which has already been discussed. The Government are quite ready to take authority, to pay in securities, but it should be with the consent of the undertaking. It is more than likely that in the majority of cases the owners of the undertaking would be quite prepared to accept the securities in payment of the depreciation. On the other hand, their circumstances may be such that it does not suit them to take securities, and they require cash, and in those circumstances there seems no reason at all why the Government should refuse to pay cash in place of securities.

Sir W. RAEBURN: I beg to second the Amendment.
The case is rather different from that of the wagon owners, and I would like to know what the Government propose to do. Take any of our dock authorities; they have bondholders whose securities are becoming due from time to time. They have numerous creditors, and they will have to discharge all these in cash, whereas the Government propose to hand over to them simply securities. The cases are much more complicated than that with which we have been dealing, and I would like to hear from the Chancellor of the Exchequer how he proposes to deal with them.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: On a point of Order, Sir. I would like to ask whether securities issued in this manner under the provisions of this Clause would have to go through the same process in this House as if it were cash—whether this Clause would enable the Minister-
designate to issue £50,000,000 of securities in payment of the loss on any undertaking without having to go through the formalities in this House as he would have to do if it were paid in cash. A decision on that point would largely influence one's vote in this matter.

Mr. SPEAKER: I am afraid I must say at this stage that I do not know. Before the Government could issue securities they must have Parliamentary authority to do it.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: The difficulty is this, that unless it is quite certain that the Minister would have to get the same authority of Parliament for issuing a certain number of millions for a loss on an undertaking in the form of securities this House would lose all control over the finance of this gigantic undertaking. Suppose the right hon. Gentleman makes a loss of £5,000,000 on any particular undertaking at the end of the two-years period, and then hands back the undertaking, and says, "It is £5,000,000 less in value than it was, but I will give you £5,000,000 of Government securities." If he does not have to come here and ask for an estimate there is no power in this House to check the loss lie may make on these undertakings. I suggest that it is absolutely essential that some such Amendment as that which has been moved, giving the power to receive it in cash, should be carried, both from the point of view of the owners themselves and of the country. It is certainly arguable that under the provisions of this Clause the Minister has got a statutory power, with the consent of the Treasury and without the consent of this House, to issue securities up to any amount he likes. If that is so, it is just as dangerous to the country as paying away cash without the assent of this House, and I venture to say it would be very much better in the interest of the country that the House should know definitely in an estimate that £5,000,000, or any other unit of millions, is going to be paid by way of loss on any particular undertaking, than that securities should be issued, and, from the point of view of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I suggest to him that it would be far better finance that the cash should be paid and that the recipients of the cash should invest it in Government securities if they like, so that in the balance-sheet of the nation we should know in any particular year we had paid out so much on these
particular undertakings; otherwise, in the old language, "We do not know where we are," and how much money has been lost in the provision of these undertakings. I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will consider this point, and make it perfectly clear that, if he does wish to issue securities, he will only do so with the assent of the House, and after the proper Resolutions have been passed, and it has gone through the proper form, in order that the House may know what money has really been spent.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I think my hon. Friend has really not realised what the Amendment means. The lose on an under taking, in the sense in which my hon. Friend seems to use the expression—that is to say, not running loss, but loss by depreciation—

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Capitalised loss.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Reduction in the value of property, owing to some action taken by the Minister. If, for instance, in the general interest of communication, the Minister took steps which permanently diverted the traffic from a line which hitherto carried it to some other, and so decreased the earning power of the first one, that might be essential in the interests of the country, but by the action of the Minister you would have depreciated the value of the property. That is really a question of whether you are entitled to set up the Minister with power which would enable him to do such things as that, and not at the same time undertake that if Tie does them on behalf of the country you would make good to the injured party ah injury which he has suffered. My hon. Friend gave all the powers to the Minister, but gave no guarantee to the injured party that he should have no redress.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: No.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: That really was the effect of my hon. Friend's argument. It is quite a different subject-matter from the case with which the Mover was dealing. I do not think it applies in a case of this kind. What happens in a case of this kind is that if permanent depreciation of value is caused by the action of the Minister, we recognise the right of the injured party to compensation. If the Minister, with the consent of the Treasury and the injured party, agrees to the assessment of the value, no further ques-
tion arises. If they do not agree, it is to be settled by the Railway and Canal Commissioners. I do not think you can have any fairer arrangement than that, and I do not think you can do any less injustice to the parties concerned.
Here I turn to the Mover and the Seconder of the Amendment—how they shall be paid. Is it fair to pay them in securities? I think it is. We have a stronger case here than in the wagons which the House has already accepted. The damage done has decreased the earning power. If you give them an annuity equal to the decrease of the earning power, you have fully compensated for, and in kind, for the damage they have received. Then there is the further question which is not left to the Treasury or the Minister. If there is a dispute as to the amount of security which is to be created to be given in compensation for the earning power lost—that again is to be settled by the Railway and Canal Commission. I do not think you can have a fairer proposition than this. I do not think it would be possible.

Sir F. BANBURY: The very clear statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer is subject to one mistake. My right hon. Friend seems to be under the impression that this Amendment only dealt with the reduction of the value of the undertaking, but also with the privately-owned wagons.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No, no! My hon. Friend forgets that we have already dealt with the privately-owned wagons. The mover of the Amendment expressly confined himself to the undertakings. It would be out of order if he had included wagons again.

Sir F. BANBURY: I did not understand that. But whether the compensation is to be given to privately-owned wagons or in reduction of damagedone—it cannot make any difference to the people who are receiving the money whether they are paid in securities, when the amount of the security is settled by a tribunal, or whether they are paid in cash—the only possible difference can be whether or not when they have this security they will or will not be able to realise it in the market at the price at which they received it. All of that will be settled at the time the security is given by the Railway and Canal Commission, unless the parties arrive at an agreement. There is the very small point which really turns upon what may
be called the turn of the market: whether or not they are to get a ¼ more or a ¼ less per cent. It is possible that it may be cither way. It depends upon the state of the market at the time.

Lord HUGH CECIL: May I put one question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer? As I understand the Clause, it is possible for the Treasury to issue securities of this particularly limited character without the consent of Parliament. I suggest to my right hon. Friend that that is rather a dangerous proceeding, and also contrary to Constitutional practice. It is not a matter which can possibly be put right in another place, as I apprehend it is one of a strictly financial kind. I suggest that the Government should very care-fully consider what they are doing, in the interests of financial propriety and the rights of this House.

Sir F. BAN BURY: It really does not matter whether the Government issues it in cash or securities !

Lord HUGH CECIL: Doubtless I am out of order, and I beg the indulgence of the House, but I should like the right hon. Gentleman to explain what we are at, not merely in relation to the rights of the owner, but in relation to the rights of the House as controlling national finance?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I can only speak again by leave of the House. I take the case that the Minister is established with the authority given, by this Bill. Given the case that, in pursuance of that authority and the objects with which it is established, he finds it in the public interest to make such changes as injure the property of a particular undertaking and reduces its value, the question is are we to pay compensation for that or not? [HON. MEMBEKS: "That is all agreed."] It is agreed that in such a case compensation ought to be paid. You come under an obligation to the undertaker, and that is embodied in this Clause. The obligation to pay is accepted by the passing of this Bill, and the duty is put upon the Government of the day, and authority is given them to pay. They are not, however, likely to pay out large sums without going to arbitration, or to the tribunal. If there is agreement I think it will be on a reasonable basis, but if there is not agreement, then the independent tribunal fixes the amount of the compensation. You cannot do less if it is once admitted that there is to be compensation.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: With great respect, I do not think the right hon. Gentleman has appreciated the point. We are all agreed about compensation, and if it is paid in cash the Minister must come here to get the money. Mr. Speaker decided only this afternoon that oven if there is statutory power the Minister must come here to get the money. That is quite clear if the compensation is paid in cash. If, however, it is paid in securities, I want to know have we the same right to know what is going on and what is being paid?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: There can be no question about the House having all the information it wants. I understood the question asked was, must we have a Vote or must we have a separate Bill. I think the authority was given here. What you will do in case of payment in cash is that it will be issued out of the Consolidated Fund to the amount of the sums found due under this Clause.

Mr. SPEAKER: The ruling I gave on a former Amendment is not really on all fours with this case. In that case there was no agreement as to any particular sum being due, but it was a proposal to make certain railway or transport services which had not up to that moment been agreed upon by anybody. That was the case I dealt with, and it is rather different to a case where the compensation has been agreed upon.

Amendment negatived.

Sir E. GEDDES: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (1), to insert the words
Provided that the Minister shall not make an advance exceeding one million pounds at any one time for the purpose of any work unless specially authorised to do so by a Resolution of the House of Commons.
The object of this Amendment is to apply a limit to the powers of the Minister to make advances. The proposal is put down in response to an appeal made in Committee that we should apply a limit of £1,000,000 to the power of the Minister to make such an advance.

Mr. REMER: I understood that the Minister-designate had agreed that the limit should be £500,000.

Sir E. GEDDES: No.

Colonel GRETTON: Earlier in the afternoon, I think, the Government agreed to a limit of £500,000 in the case of undertakings which they were going to
finance. This is a different case. It is a case where the Government arc going to guarantee money paid by others. If they are able to make an advance in this way, the provision that the Order shall lie on the Table of the House would be a mere formality. On the other hand, if they are subject to criticism, their actions should not be withheld from the knowledge of the House, and the House should not be prevented from having that opportunity of considering acts of capital expenditure on such undertakings by the Government. All things considered, the same thing should be inserted here. Five hundred thousand pounds has already been agreed to by the House, and there is no reason for greater powers in this case. I ask the Government to reconsider their Amendment, and I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, formally to leave out the words "one million,'' and insert instead thereof the words
five hundred thousand.

Sir F. BANBURY: I beg to second the Amendment to the proposed Amendment.
I think it would make the proposal of the Government consistent with w-hat we did earlier in the evening. If it was right that the Government should not spend, without coming to this House, more than £500,000 on any one scheme, surely it is right that they should not advance more than £500,000 on any one scheme to any one undertaking. As the matter stands the Government could, by making an arrangement with the undertaking, advance £1,000,000 and then spend half of it themselves and the other half on the new scheme, and so they really would get over what we arrived at a short time ago, namely, that the amount expended by the Government on a scheme should not exceed £500,000. I think that in all probability this Amendment was put down before the Government knew that they intended to accept the other Amendment.

Sir E. GEDDES: The supposition of the right lion. Baronet is not correct. There was no Amendment put down for limiting the expenditure to £500,000 on new services. This Amendment was put down long ago.

Sir F. BANBURY: That was my point.

Sir E. GEDDES: In Committee—

Sir F. BANBURY: I moved the Amendment, and the right hon. Gentleman said
if we withdraw it he would offer as a compromise to reduce the sum from £1,000,000 to £500,000.

Sir E. GEDDES: The Government, in Committee, said they were prepared to reduce it. But the position is quite different in the case of expenditure on new services. We have here to consider, after the Advisory Committee have given their advice, the needs and commercial prospects of the new service. It has been pointed out, perhaps rather unfairly to the Treasury, that they are not as well able to look after the matter from a practical or technical point of view as from the purely financial point of view. For the breaking up of roads and for the acquisition of land there was no objection to reducing the amount, but in the case of new services the position is rather different. In the first place the undertaking to which the money is to be advanced has to give, to the satisfaction of the Treasury, interest and security, and these certainly are matters on which the Treasury are able to judge, and they will be able to say whether the proposed expenditure is from a commercial point of view desirable. It would not involve a reference to the House in many cases as. there would be no land to acquire and no roads to break up. It was thought by the Government there were excellent reasons and justification for differentiating between expenditure on new services and the other expenditure in the shape of advances. It might be the undertaking would have-to give both interest and security and that interest and security would be proof to the Treasury of the soundness of the-scheme. Therefore, under that head, I hope the House will not wish to reduce-the measure of the Financial Resolution passed, in respect of new works, by the Committee upstairs, and which was inserted here merely to provide a limit of the expenditure so that very large sums should come to the House. These advances, I may further point out, are also-under the control of Parliament, as we cannot advance the money unless Parliament has provided it. The second safeguard is that where it is a new service of over £500,000 the Minister, even after Parliament has advanced the money, must come back to the House to justify his scheme, and the advance. I venture to think that Parliament is getting a greater control than it really, gets in other Departments, because, in the first place, it provides the money,
and, in the second place, if it is over certain amounts they have to approve of the individual transaction. Therefore, I hope the Amendment will not be pressed.

Amendment to the proposed Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Proposed words there inserted in the Bill.

Clause 17.—(Advisory Committees.)

(1)For the purpose of giving advice and assistance to the Minister in connection with the exercise and performance of his powers and duties, the Minister shall set up a panel of experts, appointed from nominees, after consultation with the various undertakings and interests concerned, of the various classes of undertakings affected by this Act, and of labour, trading interests, local authorities, and such other interests as he may deem desirable.

(2)Before exercising any of the powers under Sub-section (1) (b) of Section three of this Act, to the exercise of which the owners of the undertaking concerned object, or directing the establishment of new transport services by land or water, the Minister shall refer the matter to a committee selected by him from the said panel.

(3)The advisory panel or any committee to whom any matter is referred under this Section shall, before reporting or advising, if they see fit, give public notice and permit any person affected or likely to be affected to place their views before them either orally or in writing."

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Before I move the Amendment of which I have given notice, might I suggest that it would be a convenience to adjourn now We are approaching the consideration of Clause 17, which is most contentious. It deals with the whole question of the constitution of the Advisory Committees, and there is a very important Amendment by the Minister-designate to apply the Official Secrets Act to those Committees, and that will give rise to a great deal of discussion. I do not think we can possibly finish the Clause to-night, and it would be more convenient to take it all at one time.

Sir E. POLLOCK: I am unable to accept my hon. Friend's suggestion. The Eleven o'clock Rule was suspended in order that we might get further with the Bill than we nave done so far. Although there are several Amendments to this Clause, they raise somewhat interdependent matters, and probably we shall be able to get most of the Clause if not entirely.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: I beg to move, in Sub-section (l), after the word ''with" ["with the exercise"], to Insert the words
and for safeguarding any interests affected fey.
I hope the right hon. Gentleman will agree not to take the particular contentious Amendment to which I referred, and that we may be able to get through the others as quickly as possible. The Amendment I have now moved raises perhaps the most contentious point between the Minister-designate and myself. The question was debated at some length in Committee and we reserved our right for several reasons to get a decision for the House on this Clause on the Report stage. The whole question is a vital question of a difference of opinion between my right hon. Friend and those who think with him, and those who think against him in this matter, and it is whether the Advisory Committees which are going to be set up arc to be purely Committees to give him advice or assistance, or whether they are also to have some regard to the interests affected under the provisions of the Hill. In other words, Are the Committees to be Committees for establishing and increasing the autocracy of the Minister, or are the Committees to have a restraining influence on the decisions of the Minister? That is the point clearly in dispute between us. I am bound to tell the House that there is a very great difference between us on this Clause. In the Clause relating to the Advisory Committees on rates the interests are safeguarded. In that case the trader and everybody else concerned in the increase of railway rates are entitled to go before the Committee not merely to help the Minister but also to safeguard the interests of the persons affected and of the traders of the country. Exactly in the same way I want the identical words put in here. It is idle to suggest that these Committees were given in any way to advise the right hon. Gentleman. They were forced upon him upstairs by opinion which insisted upon having some safeguards inserted in the Bill. These Committees have been held out all through as safeguarding the interests affected. When it was urged that we were putting docks, harbours and tramways into the hands of the Minister, the reply was: "You have an Advisory Committee." Unless the Advisory Committee is to have some regard to safeguarding the interests concerned, of what use would this Advisory Committee be to the undertakings? Upstairs the right
hon. Gentleman tried to draw a distinction. He said he was quite willing there should be an Advisory Committee to safeguard the interests of the trading community but not to safeguard the interests of the transport undertakings. He quite frankly said:
That is the spirit which stands as a veil between my hon. Friend and myself.
It is a gulf rather than a veil. He went on:
He wants to be safeguarded, and I take it his intention is that not only shall the Committees advise, but that they shall have a restraining influence as well.
I agree that that is the exact object with which I move this Amendment. We have been trying to get some kind of restraining influence on the autocracy of the Minister in dealing with these great undertakings. The right hon. Gentleman asked the Committee upstairs to assume that in his position as Minister he was there to safeguard the interests of these great undertakings. He said:
It appears to me that it is really unnecessary to put these words in. The interests of the concern are to be safeguarded by the Ministry. That is what the Ministry is to be set up to do, und to put into an Act of Parliament that a Committee is to be set up to prevent the Ministry doing harm to those for whose good it is specially set up is a contradiction of terms.
11.0 P.M.
The Ministry is not set up to protect interests but to remodel the transport system of the country. If you have an Advisory Committee it is only fair and right that one object of it should be to safeguard these great interests. The right hon. Gentleman wants no statutory Committee to help him. Any Committee he wants to advise him he can have without statutory authority. He can appoint any number of Committees to advise him. He can say that the Committee can sit in his office, see all his papers, and give him advice. But this is a Committee which Parliament in its wisdom has set up as a distinct Advisory Committee. The only reason for setting it up was to give some safeguard to these large undertakings. I do not propose to read the other portions of the right hon. Gentleman's speech. He suggested that the Amendment implied that something unfair might be done. I do not suggest that the right hon. Gentleman would do anything unfair, but some ether Minister may come along and say to the Advisory Committee, "What am I to do with such an undertaking?" If it is to be of real value, that Committee should
have the same right of safeguarding the interests affected as it has of assisting and advising the Minister. It is a two-fold capacity that any committee can well do. It has been established that the committee on rates shall have the same two-fold capacity, and I see nothing illogical whatever in making these Advisory Committees fill the two-fold capacity at one time of helping the Minister and at the same time safeguarding the interests affected.

Sir W. RAEBURN: I beg to second the Amendment.

Sir F. FLANNERY: The modification which my hon. Friend proposes raises the whole question as to whether or not these Advisory Committees shall be partisans or shall be of a judicial character. The intention was that the Advisory Committee shall be for the purpose of advising and assisting the Minister from a judicial and impartial standpoint. What would my hon. Friend say if a skilled assessor to a judge were appointed not for the purpose of advising and assisting the judge but of safeguarding the interests of one of the parties whose interests were going to be tried before the judge?

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: That is exactly what the judge is there for himself—to safeguard interests.

Sir F. FLANNERY: The assessor, if appointed specifically for the purpose of safeguarding particular interests—not all interests—would lose his judicial capacity and would be sitting beside the judge as a partisan and not as a judicial assistant. That is exactly the position that is raised and debated in Committee. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not agree to this suggestion, because it would be entirely adverse to the whole concession of these skilled gentlemen, who will assist the Minister and will be entirely unbiassed and unpledged to take any one side or safeguard any interest whatever, but give the Minister the very best of their opinion in an impartial and entirely judicial character.

Earl WINTERTON: I agree with my hon. Friend (Sir F. Flannery). This is one of the most extraordinary Amendments that ever the ingenious mind of my hon. Friend (Mr. Joynson-Hicks) has yet devised. If this is the temper of the Amendment he is going to propose on the Clause the time
spent in discussing them will be time wasted. As I understand it possibly anyone who is in the habit of crossing a level-crossing would be entitled to be represented on the advisory council. It is quite obvious that his interests are affected by the powers the Minister will have. The Amendment might mean anything or nothing. I can conceive few Amendments more likely to give employment to the profession which my hon. Friend and so many of his friends have been so adequately representing and will produce a shoal of law cases to try to discover the meaning of the Amendment.

Sir E. POLLOCK: I think the hon. Member for Twickenham has fallen into some confusion as to the purpose for which Advisory Committees are to be set up, and he has based his reason in favour of his Amendment on the Committee set up for the purpose of advising upon rates. There is no sort of analogy between the two Committees. Let me examine the Amendment a little more closely. The Advisory Committee proposed is a Committee to advise and confidentially to help the Minister. It is not intended to control the Minister. If you have no confidence in the Minister that is one position to take up; but is it really possible to establish a Minister, to invest him with large and important powers, and then give him a Committee which is really to control his efforts and activities. If we were to add the words "and for safeguarding any interests affected thereby," and if the word "safeguarding" means preserving the interests as they exist at present, it would undoubtedly tie the Minister's hands. It might be in the national interest that the Minister should take an independent line of his own, no doubt after the advice and assistance which he would receive from persons competent to advise him. Surely the Amendment means safeguarding and preserving sectional interests as against the national interests.
The hon. Member's analogy derived from the Committee on rates cannot stand. There the Minister gives certain directions. He has in his mind the question of revision of rates, and he gives a direction to the Committee, and the Committee have to advise as to the best methods of obtaining such increase from the different classes of traffic, and as to the fairness and adequacy of the methods proposed to be adopted. That Committee is drawn from different sources.
The chairman is to be nominated by the Lord Chancellor, and there are to be two representatives of trading interests nominated by the Board of Trade, one representative nominated by the Ministry of Labour, and one representative is to represent the transport interests. These persons are to examine and report as to the best methods of obtaining such increase of rates, and no doubt in that inquiry it would be right to safeguard the various interests affected by such direction, having regard to the interdependence of the various traders and various industries in the country. That Committee is to advise on a proper scheme as to rates—always a difficult matter—but when we come to the question of competence of the Minister it is impossible to accept an Amendment which would give power to a Committee to safeguard existing interests, contrary to the national interest.

Mr. WILSON-FOX: As so often happens, it occurs to me that the truth here lies between the somewhat extreme view which has been put before the House by the hon. Member for Twickenham and the Solicitor-General. The hon. Member is perfectly frank in his desire for control. I think that this Amendment, if he gets it, will not have the effect which he desires. I see nothing in the Amendment which really gives to the Advisory Committee any effective restraining powers upon the actions of the Minister if he really wishes and intends to take any definite action. As I read the Amendment, the effect would be to cast upon the Advisory Committee the duty of keeping before the Minister the position and the needs of various interests—very important interests, no doubt -—which certainly ought to be fully represented before the Minister takes any action which might be detrimental to these interests, and I hardly think that it was worthy of the Solicitor-General to put this as being a sectional or local question as against a national question, because at the present time we are dependent on them for our efficient transport. After all that has been said it must be remembered that we in this matter are always inclined to depreciate our own institutions. It is common ground among those who have knowledge of railway affairs that the management of English railways—and I have no reason to suppose that that management is any worse or better than that of any of our great trans-
portation agencies—far from being inferior, is superior to that of any other countries of the world. English railways have led the world in efficiency of management, and until we have got something better to replace them—no doubt it is possible to improve our transport system: that is common ground—I do think that it is very natural and proper that the special interests of these great agencies on which we depend for our transportation should be kept continually present before the mind of the Minister who is bent upon making great changes. Naturally, he will, and must if he is to be successful, be an enthusiast, and that makes it all the more necessary that he should be surrounded by those who should have cast upon them the duty of keeping before him the necessity for caution and of not destroying interests which are still capable of rendering great services to the nation. Therefore I think that the House could properly accept the Amendment which is now before us without any risk of the consequences suggested by the Solicitor-General. The hon. Member for Twickenham will not, I think, get all he wants. On the other hand, I think that there would be an advantage to the community in general in adopting this somewhat more conservative policy of surrounding the Minister with advisers who have cast upon them this very important duty.

Colonel GRETTON: I think that the Government are quite safe in accepting these words without any fear as to consequences. They are not mandatory words. They are merely an instruction to the Advisory Committee that they are to take into consideration the various interests which are affected, with a view to safeguarding them. The hon. Member for Tamworth (Mr. Wilson-Fox) has spoken of the interests of railway companies and other transportation services, but there are also to be taken into consideration the interests of the community. I would support this with much greater enthusiasm if I thought it were really going to be effective. I have really doubts as to whether a system of Advisory Committees is going to have any serious effect. The Government are going to appoint through various agencies the majority of this Committee. I myself would prefer to rely on the limitations of an Act of Parliament rather than on an Advisory Com-
mittee appointed by any Government. Therefore 'the words of the Amendment are important. I believe they are not binding on the Government in any sense which they would find crippling to the general purposes of the Bill.

Dr. D. MURRAY: As more or less an outsider, I should like to say a few words against the acceptance of this Amendment. As far as I can understand, it is one of a series of wrecking Amendments. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Joynson-Hicks) has already, I understand, made one or two holes in watertight compartments of the Bill. Now the bold buccaneers want to put a pirate crew on board the ship, and when the ship is safely in harbour at Scapa Flow this pirate crew will scuttle the ship.

Sir F. HALL: This matter received serious consideration on the Committee stage. Notwithstanding the taunts of my Noble Friend (Earl Winterton), I certainly think that if the House accepted, not necessarily the words of the Amendment, but some words that would give satisfaction to the vast interests concerned, no harm would be done. I say frankly that I believe neither in supermen nor in prophets. In the Minister-designate we have every confidence. I believe him to be a very competent business man, but I do not know who is going to succeed him. The Minister-designate will do his best to safeguard the various interests. This Act, with its far-reaching effects, will last, with various alterations, for many years to come. It is the duty of the House not to give such wide powers to any Minister without taking the utmost care to safeguard the various interests concerned, as proposed in the Amendment, Many hon. Members may not agree with the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Joynson-Hicks). I think, perhaps, many of them have not looked carefully into the Division lists of the Committee. If they had done so, they would have found that all the proposals made by the Government did not meet with that acclamation and unanimous support that the Government anticipated. On more than one occasion the suggestions that emanated from the Government did not receive sufficient support to enable them to be placed in the Bill, and I think, at all events, if my hon. Friend does not succeed in passing this Amendment, it is due to him for the careful consideration he has given this
measure, that the House should take the responsibility of not passing the Amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Sir E. GEDDES: I beg to move, in Subsection (1), after the word "experts" ["a panel of experts"], to insert the words
and impartial persons of wide commercial and trading experience.

Lord H. CECIL: Who is to decide who re impartial persons? Is it to be the Minister-designate?

Sir E. GEDDES: The nominees will be appointed after consultation, which will enable us to determine who are experts, and who have wide commercial and trading experience, and who are impartial..

Amendment agreed to.

The following Amendment stood on the Paper in the name of Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: At the end of Sub-section (1), to insert the words
(2) The said panel may act together as one committee (hereinafter referred to as ' the committee'), and may appoint a chairman and a secretary, and may dissolve themselves into subcommittees, of whom the chairman shall be a member, and may make regulations as to their procedure and as to their method of voting, and the committee shall make an annual report to the Minister, and such report shall be laid annually before Parliament, and if they think fit the committee may lay before Parliament any interim report upon matters on which advice is tendered to the Minister under this Section.
 (3) There shall be paid to the chairman and secretary of the committee such remuneration as the Minister, with the consent of the Treasury, may determine.
 (4) The owners of any undertaking to whom the Minister shall have issued directions under the powers of this Act may make representation thereon to the committee and the committee may, if they think fit, make a special report of the circumstances and submit recommendations for consideration by the Minister.

Mr. SPEAKER: I am afraid the hon. Member for Twickenham cannot move Sub-clause (3) of his next Amendment, and if you take away the salaries of the chairman and secretary I suppose he would not think it worth while to go on.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: I beg to move, at end of Sub-section (1), to insert the words
(2) The said panel may act together as one committee (hereinafter referred to as "the committee"), and may appoint a chairman and a secretary, and may dissolve themselves into subcommittees, of whom the chairman shall be a
member, and may make regulations as to their procedure and as to their method of voting, and the committee shall make an annual report to the Minister, and such report shall be laid annually before Parliament, and if they think fit the committee may lay before Parliament any interim report upon matters on which advice is tendered to the Minister under this Section.
 (3) The owners of any undertaking to whom the Minister shall have issued directions under the powers of this Act may make representation thereon to the committee and the committee may, if they think fit, make a special report of the circumstances and submit recommendations for consideration by the Minister.
As I want to get on, I move this formally. I presume it will be negatived.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. OOYNSON-HICKS: I beg to move, in Sub-section (2), to leave out the words
selected by him from the said panel
and to insert instead thereof the words
of the said panel appointed by the panel.
The purpose of the Amendment is that instead of the Minister selecting the Committee from the panel, the panel themselves shall select the Committee before whom the matter shall go.

Sir E. POLLOCK: As I think the hon. Member anticipated, we are unable to accept this Amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (2), to insert the words
If the owners of any undertaking to which this Act relates consider that any direction of the Minister made under Section three of this Act in relation to such undertaking is unreasonable, the direction shall not come into force until the expediency thereof h"8 been inquired into and approved by the said panel or by a committee of the panel appointed by the panel.
() Any recommendation or advice of any committee shall be published in such manner as the committee think fit."

Sir E. POLLOCK: This really is to make the panel a sort of Court of Appeal from the Minister, and to control the Minister by the panel. In accordance with what I have already said, I am sorry I cannot accept the Amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Sir E. POLLOCK: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (3), to insert the words
(4) Section two of the Official Secrets Act, 1911, shall apply to any member of the advisory panel, or any committee thereof, or of any other committee established under this Act, for giving advice and assistance to the Minister as if he were a person holding office under His ' Majesty.
The difficulty that arises is this: It is quite obvious that the House in all quarters will agree with me that any information as to any new procedure or new decision taken by the Minister ought to be presented by the Minister here upon the floor of the House to the Members of the House. It would be a very inconvenient thing if by any means the information which he had to give or a decision which he was going to announce was forestalled in any way. I am quite certain the House will agree fully in that. If that be so, it will be observed that in this panel, or, rather, in the Advisory Committee, a number of persons are asked to assist the Minister, and who, in a sense, will not hold anything like paid office or be pledged by any oath of secrecy or anything of the sort. Perhaps something ought to be inserted in the Bill in order to give them a kind of danger signal as to the importance of complete reticence about matters they are discussing and advising the Minister. Take, for instance, an alteration in rates and many other matters arising out of this Bill. The information might be extremely helpful to a particular body of persons. I do not suggest that it would leak out at all if the attention of the Members of the Committee were drawn to the importance of the matters they were handling and dealing with, but in some way or other it ought to be made perfectly clear that the Minister is responsible to Parliament and that in Parliament information should be given and not before. The probability is that this Clause will never operate, except as what I may call a danger signal to those persons who will realise that the matters with which they are dealing are highly confidential. Hon. Members who were in the last Parliament will remember that we adopted a somewhat drastic Regulation as to matters which were of a confidential nature which had been communicated by or taken from a Government Department. There was considerable debate, as a good many will remember. I hope the Amendment may be accepted for the purpose that I have indicated—as a danger signal.

Mr. MacVEAGH: I hope the House will hesitate very seriously before adopting this proposal. Personally, I do not intervene as one opposed to the Minister-designate, for I have supported the Bill right from the beginning. Though I do
not like the description bestowed on the right hon. Gentleman as a superman—it was not much of a favour to have that title conferred upon him. My affection, however, for the right hon. Gentleman is on account of his being the only Minister that has the courage to stand up against the Treasury: on that account alone I should certainly support him. I regret he has given way on certain details. I should have preferred it if he had not.
The present proposal I regard with considerable suspicion. I do not like it, because, in the first place, it looks as if the Government has a passion for consistency in their policy of secrecy which was displayed through the whole course of the War. We have had enough secrecy and the War is over. We should not be burdened with a Clause of this kind perpetuating the Official Secrets Act. I know no precedent for the proposal. I have heard of Advisory Committees; but I have never yet heard of an insult to an Advisory Committee such as this. What is the Official Secrets Act? It was a wartime measure. [Hon. MEMBERS: "No, no."] Well, the enforcing of it! [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."]

An HON. MEMBER: It was passed in. 1911.

Mr. MacVEAGH: It was a Bill passed in connection, I believe, with the question of prohibited areas — [HON. MEMBER: "Yes"]—for the purpose of getting control of enemy spies. I am very reluctant to enter into controversy with the Solicitor-General as to the effect of any Act of Parliament. I am only speaking from my recollection—it was a measure in connection with the War—primarily a war measure, to deal with enemy aliens and enemy spies. Why that should be imported into a Bill of this kind I am absolutely at a loss to understand. It is an insult. Those appointed on the Advisory Committees, it is assumed, will be gentlemen of the highest character and standing. I assume that every gentleman appointed will have the confidence of the Minister himself, and I appeal to him to consider very seriously this point. If it is any help to the right hon. Gentleman I do not hesitate to say, if this matter goes to a Division, I am going to vote for the Minister, as I have done all through. I am, at any rate, consistent in supporting the Minister, and I want to appeal to him not to force this obnoxious Clause upon
the House. I do not believe that it is a proper Clause. It is quite unnecessary, and a gross insult to the members of the Committee. I appeal to the Government not to press this Amendment.

Mr. NEAL: I hope the Government will not press this matter. We have heard from the Solicitor-General his reasons for inserting it. I am bold enough to suggest that it would not accomplish the purpose intended. The Official Secrets Act deals entirely with war matters. It was passed in 1911, and by Section 1 it is made a felony for any person for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State to approach or be in the neighbourhood of or enter any prohibited place within the meaning of the Act, or make any sketch or matters of that kind.

Sir E. POLLOCK: That is only Section 1

Mr. NEAL: Yes, but I cannot deal with Section 2 without first dealing with Section 1. The prohibited place is defined by the Act. It includes defences, an arsenal, dockyard and the like, and amongst other things it includes any railway, roadway, channel, or other means of communication by land or water. Section 2 of the Act makes it a misdemeanour to use information of the like character to that which is mentioned in Section 1, which provides against obtaining in formation for an improper purpose. The side-note is "Penalty for Spying." Section 2 makes it a lesser offence, having got that information properly to use it improperly, but it is still dealing with the old subject of being traitorous to your country, and if gentlemen are asked to serve upon an Advisory Committee, and they are told if they inadvertently or purposely give away a Government secret they are to be dealt with as traitors to their country, there will be a great difficulty in getting the Committee formed. The Solicitor-General says it is to prevent the premature disclosure of matters which have taken place in the Advisory Committee. It is a sort of attempt to prevent the leaking out of secrets, which if the Advisory Committee were the supreme Advisory Committee of this land, namely, the War Cabinet would be, I suppose, overlooked, but to forestall a Minister in his disclosure to Parliament is to be exactly on the same footing as being a traitor. I respectfully suggest that it is putting it a bit too low, and to
tell gentlemen who sit on these Committees that if the Minister has said something in confidence, and if they happen to disclose it in some sort of way, they are liable to a prosecution under the Official Secrets Act, the whole object of which is to deal with traitors and not honest men is carrying this matter too far

Sir E. POLLOCK: Perhaps I may be allowed to answer the important speech: just delivered and the close reasoning with which it has been presented. The Official Secrets Act, in Section 1, provides that certain acts within prohibited areas—and one of the catchwords, I admit, is "spying"—shall be deemed to be a felony. But when we come to Section 2, which is the Section we are dealing with in this Amendment, we are faced with a question of misdemeanour. A cursory consideration of Section 2, a somewhat different view to that presented by the hon. Member, may be taken of it. It reads to the effect
That any person having in his possession, any information relating to what is used in a prohibited place or which has been made or obtained in contravention of the Act or which has been entrusted in confidence to him by any person holding office under His Majesty or which is obtained owing to his position as a person who holds or has held office,
and so on.

Mr. MacVEAGH: You might attach Lord French under that, then!

Sir E. POLLOCK: I do not wish to discuss the persons who may or may not come under the Section. I am merely dealing with the question whether or not what I may call the danger signal should be put into this Bill. I am answering the hon. Member for Sheffield, who asked whether the words are applicable at all. He rather treated this as a war measure dealing with spies. I am pointing out he is rather reading the Section cursorily, and that if it be read correctly it does not bear the construction he puts upon it. The hon. Member has not dealt with the alternative part which creates the offence. May I give him a very practical illustration of that, which shows I am not wrong? Civil servants are required to sign a declaration under the Official Secrets Act, and my right hon, Friend near me when he took office was asked to sign this declaration. We are asking no more than that shall be done by the members of the Advisory Committees. Very often some sort of confusion arises owing to one not being quite familiar with the system that prevails at
the present time. Surely there can be no objection to asking members of these Committees to do what Civil servants are required to do at the present time. Surely the House should have the safeguard, such as it is, which is exacted from Civil servants, and that these persons—who, by the way, may have an opportunity of divulging important information—shall have serious attention drawn to the position they hold and the confidence entrusted in them, and that they should be placed in a position which cannot be called humiliating and which has been accepted by Members of this House who sit right and left of me. If it had never been done before, if it were not part of our present system, some question might arise, but, inasmuch as it is part of our system, I hope the House will be willing to accept the Government proposal without further explanation. I am sure the hon. Member for Sheffield will agree, on a more careful examination of the Section, with the view I have presented of it.

Rear-Admiral ADA1R: May I ask whether the Civil servants referred to as having signed this Declaration are not confined to those in the Wireless Departments of the Admiralty and the War Office?

Sir E. POLLOCK: Certainly, not! The Official Secrets Act was passed in 1911. There was no thought of war at that time. It was not passed as a war measure, although it is sought now to represent it as one of the various war measures passed in haste to fill up gaps existing in the legislation of the country. But it was passed three years before the War broke out.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: But it was an emergency measure. The whole thing was passed through the House of Commons in one evening—the Second Reading, the Committee and Report stages, and the Third Reading. I was not a Member of the House at the time; there was a temporary lapse in my continuity of service owing to my Constituency not being as wise as it might have been. My hon. and learned Friend has not read the whole of the Act. First of all, may I say this Act has never jet applied to any of us who sit on Royal Commissions or on Advisory or other Committees. We have never been insulted by having this put before us. No one has had to complain of the indiscretions of
Members who have sat on Royal Commissions or Departmental Committees. Coming under this Act will be an Advisory Committee which represents local authorities. It is to be appointed by the right hon. Gentleman after consultation with and from names put forward by the local authorities. There will be discussions between the right hon. Gentleman and these representatives of the local authorities, and when those representatives go back to the local authorities and are asked what they have settled, they will have to reply, "I cannot tell you; I am bound by the Official Secrete Act. I can tell you nothing of what has taken place." It is an impossible position for Members of this House, who give their time freely and voluntarily to serve on Advisory Committees appointed by the right hon. Gentleman, that we cannot go out from his sitting-room and say to any of our friends, "We must resist this," or "We must support that." That would be an infringement of the Official Secrete Act, because we should be telling what we had heard in Committee. This is a proposal which has never been enacted or suggested before as applying to Members of this House or to private individuals.

Mr. MacVEAGH: It does not apply to the Government.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: It applies, I believe, to the Cabinet.

Mr. MacVEAGH: Not in practice.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS: Perhaps not in practice. Let the House realise the position we are in. Any Member who is found committing an offence under this Act, whether the offence be a felony or not, or is reasonably suspected of having committed or attempting to commit or being about to commit such an offence, may be apprehended and locked up by the first policeman who comes along. In other words, if the right hon. Gentleman says, "So-and-so, who is a Member of my Committee, is a dangerous person. He did not agree with me this afternoon. He will tell all the other Members of Parliament what we did tins afternoon. I will have him locked up," he can do it. The Solicitor-General did not read Section 9 of the Act, which provides that if a justice of the peace is satisfied on information on oath that there is reasonable ground for suspecting that an offence under this Act has been or is about to be committed, he may grant a search warrant. Why, I
should have my house always invaded if this were enforced. It is impossible that hon. Members or representatives of the great county councils or of the great undertakings, who voluntarily give their time to helping my right hon. Friend, should run the risk of being apprehended on their way home or of having their houses searched under a search warrant.

12.0 M.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT: There is another aspect of this matter. The object of an Advisory Committee is to afford some check upon the autocratic powers of the Minister under this Bill. Unless the Advisory Committee can make public the fact of the advice they have given to the Minister, their powers will be nil. The only point, from the public point of view, in having a Committee of this kind is that if this body of distinguished, impartial, and experienced men, to use the words of the Bill or something like them, give certain advice to the Minister and he disagrees, it is true he can override their advice, but they can make public the fact that they have given that advice and the public can judge. Unless they are allowed to make that fact public, the whole or a large part of their value will be taken away. That view, I believe, has always been accepted by this House and also by Government Departments in appointing Advisory Committees. There is no precedent at all of an Advisory Committee being muzzled in this way. Members of Advisory Committees have been appointed departmentally, and the great safeguard has always been that if they do, on some question of principle, disagree with the Minister on some question, it is open to them to resign and to state the reasons in public why they have resigned. Even where Advisory Committees have been appointed by legislation, there has never been an attempt made to muzzle them in this way. Take a couple of instances. Section 79 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1306, gave power to the Board of Trade to appoint Committees for the purpose of advising them on a number of different matters, and we know that the Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee of the Board of Trade has sat for a number of years and given advice on a number of most important subjects, and that it has been of great public use. My hon. Friend (Sir F. Flannery), who has been supporting the Government on many of the Amendments to this Bill, agrees that that has been the case. But of what power
would their advice be for public purposes if they could not have made their advice public? The Leader of the House quite properly says that they do not in practice go talking. No Member who is appointed to the responsible position of membership of an Advisory Committee goes gossipping; that is quite another thing. There-is a wide distinction between the confidential character of the information and the confidential way in which the information is received by the member of a committee with the seal, so to speak, of confidence in the sense that they cannot go talking about the various details of information given and discussed. But the point is that they must be free in the result to announce to the public the advice they have given, not to announce in detail everything they have been told, for that is quite a different thing. We can trust to their honour not to go talking unnecessarily and unwisely and improperly of matters of which they ought not to talk. I very much doubt whether the Government in all the Advisory Committees appointed during the War could quote a single case where any member of those Committees has made public information which he has received in confidence, and which he ought not to have made public. That is true and that is conclusive proof that the members of those Committees, well and carefully chosen as they are, have a high sense of honour, and that you can trust them. To-tie them beyond that is contrary to public policy, and to apply this Act, in my view as a lawyer, would have the effect of preventing members of the committee making known to the public the fact of the advice they had given. The fact that the decision come to would be a piece of information learned in their capacity as members would prevent them making it. Take a recent illustration. In the Ministry of Health Act Advisory Committees have been created, and there is no condition of this kind. During the War there was an extremely important Advisory Committee appointed jointly by the Food Ministry. I was a member of that Committee. We were asked to treat anything told as strictly confidential. At the first two meetings I raised the question as to-what ought to be done in regard not to details of information given to us officially, but as to the actual advice given by the Council to the two Ministries. After a
discussion the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Platting Division of Manchester(Mr. Clynes), who was then Food Controller, agreed that all he could do was to leave that in the discretion of the members. He recognised that it must be possible for the Committee to be able to say to the public, "We gave this ad-rice to the Ministry, and the Ministry have not acted on it, and we disagree with the view they had taken." Unless the Committee can state publicly in the ultimate resort what is the advice they have given, and if on any occasion the Ministry take a decision which is publicly disapproved of, the Advisory Committee have the full responsibility of the decision. They are identified with the decision, and the public cannot know they were protected on the Committee. With great respect I venture to submit that if the Committee cannot influence the public the Committee will not influence the Minister. Unless it can bring pressure to bear on the Minister by saying "In the ultimate resort we must make this matter public," it will not have any influence on the Minister. I say further that without publicity it will not have influence with the public. Therefore, the objects of the Committee will be defeated unless you have power of publicity. It will not influence the Minister, and will not influence the public, and one of the objects of the Advisory Committee is to support the decisions of the Minister, and to show the public that the Minister has behind him the considered opinion of a great body of experts whom the public can trust. Those two objects will be defeated if this Amendment is adopted. The wise course is to drop it, to trust to the confidence and the honour of the members of the Committee, and to leave them the power in the ultimate resort of making their advice public so that they may have a power which is essential to their working efficiently.

Mr. BONAR LAW (Leader of the House): There is, I am certain, some misunderstanding at all events as to the purpose for which the Amendment was put in. As we have now got to a very late hour I do not propose to go beyond Clause 18, and I hope the House will come to an immediate decision upon this point. I should like to give my reason for thinking something of this kind is necessary. The hon. Member who spoke first regarded
this as if it were an insult to those who were asked to come under the obligation, but, obviously, that cannot be the case, for it would equally apply to every Civil servant, however highly he is placed. It may be quite true that we have not gained very much by adopting the Official Secrets Act. It may be that in the long run we should gain a great deal more by trusting to the honour of those to whom the duties are given than by any other method. But there is this very distinct difference with regard to this Bill as compared with any other advisory committee, not excepting those to which the hon. and learned Gentleman referred. The Minister under this Act not only may consult the Advisory Committee, but he is bound to consult it. Surely, therefore, if these are not merely statutory bodies, but bodies which it is incumbent upon him by Statute to consult, they ought to be, from the point of view of confidential working, in exactly the same position as other Government servants of any kind whatever. But my hon. Friend has no idea of penalising anyone for any mistake made inadvertently. I can say these few words because I myself, when I noticed the Amendment, had some doubt about the necessity for it, and had a consultation with my right hon. Friend in regard to it. The real fact is that in some of the work of this Advisory Committee the position is precisely the same as that of a Chancellor of the Exchequer in introducing his Budget. There will be opportunities of obtaining information which, if allowed to go out, would give opportunities of making money and taking advantage of it to an extent which none can overestimate.

Mr. MacVEAGH: Does not that apply to every corporation in the country?

Mr. BONAR LAW: To nothing like the same extent. I admit that in the case of Chancellors of the Exchequer there never has been, I think, anything of that kind, and I am sure that can be relied on here; but I am sure also that the House of Commons in the Act itself ought to make it quite plain that the gentlemen who are appointed to this Advisory Committee are in a confidential position as advisers to the Ministry and are not free to make public in any way the information which they get. I cannot agree with my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Scott) that the only use of these Committees is the pressure they can bring to bear on the
Minister. If that were the spirit in which we were dealing with the Act it would Toe far better not to have the Act at all. These Advisory Committees will only be of use if their purpose is to advise the Minister and they devote themselves to that and nothing more. It is said that they should have the opportunity to make their advice public. What does that mean? My right hon. Friend has certain schemes in view. He may or may not have made up his mind. The Advisory Committee may have disagreed with him. Is the Advisory Committee to be able at once to make it public that there is this difficulty and to try to get up an agitation against him? If that is to be the attitude these Advisory Committees will not work at all. That does not mean that there is no power in the House of Commons to obtain knowledge as to the advice given by the Advisory Committee. Any Member of the House of Commons who has a doubt about the wisdom of the Minister's action can put a question and ask what the advice of the Advisory Committee was. Of course, he may decline to give the Reports, but it is always in the power of the House of Commons to insist that the Minister, who is the servant of the House, should give the information, if the House of Commons thinks it is of sufficient importance to have it. Do not let us have differences about words. Our sole object in putting in these words is to let the members of the Advisory Committees know that they are acting as confidential advisers of the Government in the same way as every other man who is serving the Government. I have consulted my right hon. Friend, and all we want is to make that clear. He is willing, instead of putting in the Official Secrets Act, with all its penalties, to alter the Amendment so that in giving advice and assistance to the Minister they "shall be considered to be acting entirely in a confidential capacity."

Sir E. GEDDES: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Sir E. GEDDES: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (3), to insert the words
Any member of the advisory panel or any committee thereof, or of any other committee established under this Act, for giving advice and assistance to the Minister shall be considered to be acting entirely in a confidential capacity.

Amendment agreed to.

CLAUSE 18.—(Consent of Local Authority.)

Nothing in this Act shall be construed as giving power to the Minister to impose any conditions upon a local authority which shall entail expenditure without consent of such local authority or the Local Government Hoard.

Mr. INSKIP: I beg to move to leave out the words
or the Local Government Board.
The Local Government Board will, presumably, be the Ministry of Health. Some local authorities are the owners of dock undertakings, and it is a very curious provision which says that nothing in the Act shall be construed as giving power to the Minister to compel the local authority to do something which will entail expenditure without their consent or the consent of the Ministry of Health. It is an anomaly that the Minister of Health should be the Court of Appeal regarding the possible construction of a dock or the provision of a railway siding or the provision of a dock warehouse. The Minister-designate proposes to substitute the Minister of Health by his Amendment. That makes the thing still more anomalous. It would be better for the Minister-designate to have the powers which Clause 3 has given him to give certain directions to the undertaking. The Minister of Health has not been accustomed to dealing with such things as railways and docks and he ought not to decide. If a local authority is not prepared to incur expenditure it is rather hard that it should be thrust upon them by the decision of the Minister of Health who has a very large number of duties to perform and is not in a position to deal with such things as the construction of a dock.

Sir E. GEDDES: This Clause was inserted in Committee and we discussed it very fully there. The point was this: in the case of local authorities it is only reasonable that they should be on a different footing from undertakings run for profit, and that if the Minister requires them under the powers given by this Bill to incur expenditure the Local Government Board, which is the only direct guardian of their finance, will be in the position of coming in to confirm or otherwise their objections as the guardians of their finances. The Government accept the view of the Committee that that appeal was not an unreasonable thing in the case of a local authority. Now with the change from the Local Government
Board to the Ministry of Health the Amendment which stands in my name is necessary. It also brings in the correct authority for Scotland and Ireland. The Amendment is a protection for the local authority which is considered desirable.

Mr. INSKIP: Would it not be possible on reconsideration to select something more suitable than the Ministry of Health. The Ministry of Health is not a proper authority for a Court of Appeal. It is a purely illusory provision, and I would suggest that the matter should be adjourned so that the Minister might find some Government Department more competent to carry out this work.

Sir E. GEDDES: As I am advised the duties of the Local Government Board In connection with the financing of local authorities has been transferred to the Ministry of Health. If that is so then in spite of the fact that the name Ministry of Health does not carry the sequence of thought it is still the right Department to which reference should be made. If the local authority are required to do anything under the powers given by this Bill which would imperil their finances, the Ministry of Health is the Department to deal with the matter, and, therefore, I think that it should be allowed to stand in the Bill.

Mr. INSKIP: In view of the explanation given, I will withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment made: Leave out the words "the Local Government Board," and insert instead thereof the words

"of the Minister of Health,, or in Scotland the Secretary for Scotland, or in Ireland the Local Government Board for Ireland." — [Sir E. Geddes]

Ordered,
That the further consideration of the Bill, as amended, be now adjourned."—[Lord Edmund Talbot.]

Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be further considered to-morrow (Tuesday).

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY [29th May].

ARMY ESTIMATES, 1919–20.

Resolution reported,
That a further sum, not exceeding £50,000,000, be granted to His Majesty on account for defraying the Charges for Army Services, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1920.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution.

Mr. G. THORNE: Perhaps the Financial Secretary to the War Office will be good enough to state the circumstances under which he submits this to-night?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Forster): It is necessary to get the Report of the Vote to-night in order that we may have money tomorrow to carry out the necessary payments for the Army and Army services. We do not expect the House to give us a Report of this magnitude sub silentio; therefore, we propose to put down Army Estimates again in the near future so that hon. Members, many of whom have points to raise, will not be deprived of the opportunity of raising them at a more convenient hour of the day when they can meet with full consideration.

Mr. THORNE: We shall have a full day for that?

Mr. FORSTER: Yes.

Captain SPENDER CLAY: I think that one ought to protest against this method of bringing this matter before the House at such an hour of the night. It shows, great ineptitude on the part of the financial branch of the War Office, who seemingly have discovered at the last moment that if they do not get the Report stage at this sitting the Army will not be paid to-morrow. There must be something wrong, some great oversight. In my own limited experience of the financial branch of the War Office, a more obstructive branch could not be found. If there is. any Committee sitting which requires improved conditions in the way of pensions or pay for the soldier it is always met by the obstruction of the financial branch of the War Office; yet at 12.15 at night we are asked to vote £50,000,000 because they have suddenly ascertained that it is necessary to obtain it on this particular day. I realise that the Financial Secretary has promised a day for full discussion, and ho says it will be in the near future. We were anxious to have such discussion this week, but hon. Members with whom I am associated were informed that it was not possible owing to other more important business. I do suggest that the Leader of the House should give us an undertaking that at any rate next week we shall have an opportunity of discussing these Estimates. These are matters of most urgent
importance which ought to be brought before the House in connection with the Army Estimates. I will refer only to such questions as that of service with the Colours counting towards civil pension when a man joins the Civil Service after being in the Army or Navy. There are innumerable other points. I sincerely hope that the Leader of the House will promise us a day next week, and that we shall have an undertaking that if we pass this without lengthy discussion tonight we shall have an opportunity of bringing these matters before the House on a full Parliamentary day.

Mr. BONAR LAW: May I say, in answer to the reference to myself, that unless something unforeseen happen the Government will give another day next week.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir J. HOPE: There are many subjects which hon. Members desire to discuss and to get an answer upon, and the decisions in many of these case have been delayed for some time by the Finance Branch of the War Office. There is the question of the disposal of the large sums of money under the Army and Navy Canteens Board and the question of the allowance to soldiers who have been demobilised, having had no leave for the previous two years, and who are put on the same terms and receive exactly the same leave pending demobilisation as those who have had leave three months previous to demobilisation. These questions were referred some time ago to the Finance Department of the War Office, and we have, had no answer yet, and it is only reasonable to ask that if we now pass this Vote, and give way to the Finance Department, the least they can do in return is to have decisions ready to announce to the House on the day on which these Supplementary Estimates are put down, in order to enable the House to discuss these questions. In the past on Army Estimates there has often been a long discussion, and the answer to many of the questions which have been raised has been that they will have to be decided by the Finance Department of the War Office; but I think, having now given notice of all
these questions, we should receive some assurance that we shall not only be allowed to discuss these questions, but that we shall have them definitely answered by the Finance Department.

Major-General Sir JOHN DAVIDSON: I wish to endorse what has fallen front the hon. and gallant Member opposite (Captain Spender Clay). I, too, feel that there is great delay going on in the Finance Department of the War Office. There arc a great many urgent questions and grievances which require to be righted, in regard to retired pay and pensions of officers and men, in regard to the war gratuities of the men, in regard to allowing service with the Colours to count towards Civil Service pensions, and in regard to pre-war pensions. All these matters have been held up. I believe the question of retired pay and pensions has been in the hands of the Finance Department of the War Office since last autumn, and nothing has been done in the matter, which is, nevertheless, one of great urgency.

Orders of the Day — GOVERNMENT OF THE SOUDAN LOAN (GUARANTEE).

Committee to consider of authorising the Treasury to guarantee, out of the Consolidated Fund, the payment of interest, on a Loan to be raised by the Government of the Soudan—(King's Recommendation signified) — to-morrow (Tuesday)— [Mr. Bonar Law]

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

It being after half-past Eleven of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Twenty-seven minutes after Twelve o'clock